Wallowa County Chieftain
News
wallowa.com
October 28, 2015
A9
ROBB: Breast cancer
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Continued from Page A1
Don’t wait for a well-doc-
umented symptom.
The local medical profes-
sional she saw immediately
recommended a mammo-
gram. “She told me, ‘there’s
no reason to wait, just go see
if it’s yes or no.’”
When the mammogram
came back there was some-
thing very small showing.
“From there they did an ul-
tra sound and then a biopsy,”
Sherry said. “Back then you
waited 10 days. That’s a long,
hard wait. A lot of things go
through your mind in that
stage: What if it is? What am
I going to do?”
Soon Sherry learned that
she had Stage 3 cancer.
“Even though it was very
small it was in a milk duct
and had erupted into the outer
tissue -- any time it does that
they generally diagnose it at
Stage 3.
“Then they say ‘let’s see
if it went out into the lymph
glands. That scared me as
much as the diagnosis.”
Fortunately it had not pro-
gressed that far.
And she was told that un-
less it has spread, and if it is
caught early, breast cancer is
very containable. If treated
early, 100 percent of wom-
en with Stage 1 breast can-
cer survive; 93 percent with
Stage 2 survive; 72 percent
of women with Stage 3 breast
cancer survive.
At this point, Sherry said,
the education really begins.
Your options are laid out,
starting with doing nothing
and going on through radi-
ation, chemotherapy, single
or double mastectomy ... and
you realize you are already
in the midst of a process that
will take years to resolve.
That’s not the way Sherry
likes to tackle a problem. She
prefers to identify the prob-
lem and handle it. Done.
So, she chose a double
mastectomy and chemother-
apy because it was the treat-
ment most recommended and
“They pretty much said, ‘if
you do all this, you could live
to be 80 or 90 years old. If
you die before that it will be
from something else.’”
So, decision made. Let’s
get it done.
But there were a few other
details to work out.
Sherry doesn’t like her
ordinary life interrupted. At
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did not tell the kids what was
going on.
“I just kept chugging
along with my daily job,” she
said. “But, once I started the
chemo, after my third treat-
ment my hair came out and I
shaved it all and bought a cou-
ple hats.”
Her workmates at Commu-
nity Connection in Enterprise
were “awesome” about her
journey and the necessity of
missing a day or two of work
on a regular basis.
“I usually had the treatment
Fridays, missed Monday and
went right back to work,” she
said.
But she got a call from her
youngest child’s school. He
was very anxious, she was
told, and the teacher asked her
if he knew what was going on.
“I had wanted to protect
him,” Sherry said, “but when
your hair falls out it can be
really scary for kids. Now, I
think talking to kids, even if
they are really little, can help
a lot. You have to be open with
them -- age-appropriate, but
open. I was able to tell him I
was having a treatment but I
was going to be all right. That
helped a lot.”
After that, they found the
time to tell each of the kids
what was going on and to an-
swer any of their questions.
There was never a “sit-down
family discussion” Sherry
said. For the Robbs, it worked
to give each child individual
time.
And chemotherapy, as hard
as it was, turned out to have its
good points.
“The room was full of both
men and women getting che-
motherapy for several differ-
ent cancers -- probably 12-15
people at one time -- and it was
comforting to see other people
in your shoes and know they
were feeling the same thing
you are,” she said.
Getting cancer is, after all, a
common event. One hundred,
twenty-nine women out of ev-
ery 100,000 in the state of Or-
egon get breast cancer. You’re
not a freak of nature.
And so the next part of the
process unfolded for Sher-
ry. She got to know some of
her fellow chemo patients,
her husband stepped up and
proved himself to be a trea-
sure, and the kids were OK.
“My husband was scared
to death,” Sherry said. “But he
didn’t want me to know. We
talk about it now and we can
laugh, but he tells me about
things he had to do, like drain-
ing the tubes after my mastec-
tomy when he thought he was
going to throw up. He shaved
his head at the same time I did.
He did a lot of the cooking and
cleaning and helping with the
kids. He was amazing.”
Sherry is cancer-free now,
just as the medical profession-
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of screenings, they told her
“get out of here, you’re done,”
she said.
And now she wants to help
others. “I remember when I
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anyone else who had cancer
to talk to,” she said. “I kept
looking for people who were
going through it at the same
time. And survivors, it’s real-
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who can say, “I’m a survivor
and it happened a really long
time ago.”
Now, individuals through-
out the county call Sherry for
support.
“That makes me feel good
–- that I can help,” she said.
“It is scary, but if you can talk
to someone who talks about it
the past tense -– that helps.”
Sherry’s response to can-
cer was very proactive, and
she can’t recommend enough
that individuals with any sort
of health issue be proactive.
“I wanted to get it resolved
as soon as possible,” she said.
Prior to his journalism
career, Heisel worked for a
family-owned grocery store
in Missoula for seven years
during high school and col-
lege. He is recently divorced
and has two beagles, Archie
and Henry.
The Chieftain traces its
beginnings to 1884. In 2000
it was acquired by the com-
pany now known as EO Me-
dia Group, which also in-
cludes the East Oregonian in
Pendleton, the Blue Moun-
tain Eagle in John Day, and
eight other regional newspa-
pers.
FIRE: Blaze destroys
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Continued from Page A1
“But local contractors
want to have the opportuni-
ty to bid on that, too. Do we
snub our noses at the insur-
ance company and hire who
we want to? What happens if
we do? That’s the question. I
don’t know the answer to that
question yet, and that’s why
the decision hasn’t been made
yet,” he added.
Cleanup, however, has
already begun. Ken Nash of
Nash Excavating in Enter-
prise was awarded the clean-
up project.
No matter what happens
with the insurance, local
residents and business own-
ers have been stepping up to
donate funds for whatever is
needed to see the sports pro-
gram through the year.
The Enterprise Educa-
tional Foundation (EEF)
received over $18,000 in
donations with more coming
in, according to EEF Presi-
dent Cindi Aschenbrenner.
All donations to the EEF
are tax deductible.
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She enjoys sports,
especially soccer
Continued from Page A1
Steve Tool/The Chieftain
A scorched helmet rests on a fence post near the Enterprise High School field house.
and basketball. Kaelin is
an Honor Roll Student
and this year's editor of
the yearbook. It is for
these accomplishments,
and her consistent,
Kaelin Sanders positive example, that she
Enterprise Seventh-Day
receives this recognition.
Adventist School
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Dr. Davis will be based in La Grande; he will see patients at Wallowa
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Wallowa Memorial Hospital is an equal opportunity employer and provider.
Youngsters!
Come Trick-or-Treat
with the Oldsters!
at Alpine House in Joseph
M-F 8AM-6PM • SAT 8AM-5PM • SUN 9AM-3PM

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Lots of candy and fun! We’ll be dressed up!
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