By Claudia Loucks
Correspondent

Stephanie VanOpdorp doesn’t dwell on her journey with breast cancer and added, “Nor do I advertise it. I am blessed and grateful to still be alive and healthy.”

She continually looks to the future, which as of this week involves retirement from her position at Geneseo High School. Her last day at her desk in the athletic office was Oct. 21, although she will continue to be involved at GHS, “by working at athletic events”

VanOpdorp worked for the Geneseo School District for 24 years, as library aide for four years; in the main office for 15 years and as the athletic office administrative assistant for the last five years.

Her story with the diagnosis of breast cancer began in the summer of 2001 when she discovered a lump in her left breast, “totally by accident,” she said. “I was not looking for it and I had had a mammogram less than two years previously and all was fine.”

Life was busy in the VanOpdorp household at that time with her youngest son graduating from high school and leaving for college. Her middle son was graduating from college, getting married and beginning seminary at Nashotah House in Nashotah, Wis. Her stepdaughter was a student at the University of Iowa.

“I was not even 50 years old so I thought it (the lump) was probably just hormonal changes and I did nothing, thinking it would just go away,” she said.

It didn’t go away and VanOpdorp saw a nurse practitioner in September of 2001 and was told the lump needed to be removed.

“Next thing I know, I am having a lumpectomy and a surgeon is leaning over me in the recovery room, saying, ‘I’m so sorry, it is cancer.’ I looked at my husband (Jim), thinking what now.”

The couple chose to visit Mayo Clinic in Rochester to have the lymph nodes removed and VanOpdorp said, “I am very glad we did because they took out as few as possible and were still able to get a good sample. Because of this, I have not experienced any trouble with lymph edema in my arm. My cancer had spread to a few lymph nodes so I knew chemotherapy was in my future.”

Mayo Clinic recommended a doctor in the Quad City area and learned her tumor was Stage 2 and it was recommended she have four rounds of chemotherapy followed by radiation.

“I was eligible for a clinical trial that was being conducted so I made the decision to have an additional 12 chemotherapy treatments,” she said. “I can’t sugar coat the effects of chemo. I lost all my hair, even my eye brows.”

When her hair first began to fall out, her husband used his clippers to shave her head….”I was then, and still am, so very fortunate to have my husband Jim in my life.”

Even though it was recommended she take an estrogen blocker, VanOpdorp said the medication made her feel like a dark, heavy cloud was hanging over her…”My doctor said I had to do what was best for my mental health, so I stopped taking that drug.”

She wore a wig to work at Geneseo High School where at that time she was a library aide.

She eventually chose to forego the wig, and decided hats or bandanas would be just fine.

VanOpdorp said during her tenure as an aide in the library, working with former librarian Kathy Griffith made her feel safe, cared for and normal…”Kathy will never know what she meant to me during my treatments,” she said. “I can never thank her enough and I missed only about two weeks of work. I am a Southern girl from Baton Rouge, LA, and have been raised to just keep going forward. I wasn’t ill in the regular sense so when I could, I did just keep going. I will admit there were days when I just couldn’t move.”

She estimated undergoing 35 radiation treatments.

“Eventually, my hair grew back and my eyelashes came back,” she said. “The effects of chemo did take years to go away. I had bone pain in my legs for quite some time, but that eventually was controlled with medication. I had terrible mouth sores during treatment and they were so bad that at one point the treatment had to be delayed in order for those sores to heal. Your body does heal with time, maybe it takes longer that we would like, but it does heal.”

“What they don’t tell you is the damage that radiation can cause,” she said. “My left breast was just not what I was comfortable with and I knew I never would be, so I chose to have a mastectomy with reconstruction about five years after my diagnosis. The best decision ever and I couldn’t be happier with the results. If this is something a woman is thinking about, I say ‘do it’.”

Even though VanOpdorp has had no reoccurrence in more than 21 years, she was told breast cancer, unlike some other cancers, can reoccur at any time in another area of the body…”I will always live with that fear,” she said.

She continues to schedule annual mammograms and has an appointment with her oncologist once a year.

“I don’t dwell on my journey with breast cancer, nor do I advertise it, but I was asked to share my story and this is it,” she said.“I do regret not telling my family about my diagnosis earlier than I did tell them.I thought I was protecting them, but they didn’t see it that way.I recommend telling your loved ones immediately if you ever have to face something similar.”