A family fights cancer

Finding strength in their unity, a mother and her daughters battle the deadly disease together.

By DEBBIE CROFT
Sun-Star Correspondent

MARIPOSA -- Imagine the pain of losing your dad to cancer.

Then imagine your grandmother suffering from cancer twice.

Now picture your mom with cancer. And your sister with cancer two times.

And now you.

This is the story of Theresa Cayous, Andrea Summerlin and their mom, Connie Waldron -- all three drawing on each other's love and strength when cancer invaded their bodies, their lives and their family. But this is more than a story of shared experience, it's also a story of survival and the hope that continues to push these three women toward the future.

Summerlin's ominous news came first, in the late 1980s, that she had cervical dysplasia. "My cancer was only on the skin of the cervix, and hadn't invaded the underlying tissue. I didn't need any type of chemotherapy or radiation -- only surgery," she said.

As a young, single woman in the U.S. Air Force stationed in Germany, Summerlin was fortunate to have access to military health facilities. "There wasn't as much information then about cancer, but mine wasn't too serious. They took good care of me," she said. "Probably because I was a power-lifter, and among the top 10 in my weight class. They didn't want to lose me!" she joked.

With the births of both of her children, Summerlin had a Caesarean section.

Then in 1998 she was stationed again in Germany, when she discovered the cancer had returned. A second surgery removed the abnormality, and she's been cancer-free ever since.

"Pap smears are an important precautionary measure. Because the doctors were able to spot my cancers early, I didn't have to endure as much," she said.

"My mother and sister are really the heroes, because of all they've been through."

Now retired from the Air Force, Andrea works for Mariposa County. She still exercises and works out regularly and eats a healthy diet.

Waldron's story is very different.

"Beginning in 1998 I had difficulty with some pain in my right elbow. My doctor examined it and made a note to watch it, but at the time no problem was apparent."

Three years later, though, she was still in pain, continuously. She had fallen and thought the elbow was taking its time to heal from the incident. "After several visits to the doctor, I was sent to the University of California San Francisco Medical Center. The operation revealed a broken elbow and a tumor the size of an orange.

"The diagnosis was large B cell lymphoma," Waldron said. "It looked as though the tumor had been growing since 1998."

The surgery was followed by chemotherapy and radiation through the latter part of summer in 1999, followed by check-ups every few months, and then yearly.

"My future prognosis is great! No evidence of any cancer since 2002," Waldron said.

Waldron's elderly mother, Clydette Waldron, had colon cancer twice, and Connie's husband, Jack Summerlin, passed away a few years ago with lung cancer.

"He was a smoker," Waldron said. "I was, too. I smoked for 42 years. And I miss it, but I don't need it."

Cayous' battle with cancer was also a tough one.

"I had inflammatory breast cancer, at stage 3B out of 4 stages," she said. It is a rare type of cancer that starts in the breast and travels through the body onto the skin. "That is where I found it. I went to the doctor and six days later I had a diagnosis. That was on Dec. 17, 2004 -- one of the most difficult days of my life." Perhaps because Theresa is an elementary school teacher ( in Atwater), she took it upon herself to become educated and informed.