Pinktober Profiles: Toni Whitaker

I'm so excited to share the next profile in our series, collaboratively written by my Brunswick Community College Eng 111 students as part of their service learning "Profile of a Survivor" assignment. Many of these students are still in high school, participating as part of the Early College High School program. They are taking college level courses in addition to their full course load of high school classes, and many are involved in extra-curricular activities as well. In order to raise awareness of what breast cancer is really like right here in our community, these students collaborated to write profiles of 7 incredible survivors from our community. I'll share their writing with you over the next week.

Defying All Odds

Guest Contributors: Kaitlyn Dove, Claire Longshore and Valerie Renna

Did You Know?  As many people may know, breast cancer is very common in women. Over 232,000 females develop this disease every year and about 40,000 die from it. Men can develop breast cancer but this sickness is about 100 times more common among women. Health is a major factor in the occurrence of breast cancer, along with genetics and obesity. Overweight women, and women who produce (and consume) high levels of estrogen are more likely to produce higher levels of estrogen which “feeds” many types of breast cancer cells. After a woman discovers that she has breast cancer, she then visits an oncologist who specializes in the study of cancer. There are three different types of oncologists, medical, surgical and radiation. Depending on the patient's plan of treatment, he or she visits one or all of the different oncologists.  These doctors suggest popular treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.

Toni Whitaker was an all-around strong and healthy thirty-four year old woman. Toni had gone through some major traumatic events including a total of four miscarriages and one stillbirth over the course of five years. She was told that she would never be able to have children and although that discouraged her, physically and mentally, she always had a positive attitude and was grateful for all of the things in her life. Toni worked hard at maintaining a healthy lifestyle including playing tennis, eating right, and running on a daily basis. Toni was healthy, married for five years and all around very happy, until one day in the shower she noticed that her breasts were unusually lumpy. Although Toni hated to think about it, she knew what this could mean. She explained to her husband what she had discovered and scheduled a visit with her primary doctor, who then sent her to an oncologist.

At the oncologist it was standard procedure to take a pregnancy test even after she explained to her doctor that there was no way possible that she could be pregnant. Toni’s doctor came in and told her that he had good news as well as bad news. The doctor explained his good news was that she was finally pregnant. The bad news was that she, in fact, had breast cancer. That’s right. In that moment, Toni found out she was pregnant and had breast cancer. According to Toni, in the 1980’s treatment for pregnant women with cancer was unheard of . The doctor explained to Toni and her husband that she could not undergo chemotherapy and radiation because of her pregnancy. They knew there was no way they were terminating her pregnancy and asked the doctor to examine other possibilities to get rid of the cancer. After some discussion, Toni was told about an experimental medication available through a trial in Boston. There were risks in taking the medication, particularly for pregnant women. In order to receive this medication, her supportive husband drove to Boston from Connecticut every two days for a supply. Toni was warned; while taking this medication, there was a possibility she would not live more than six months and that if her child survived she would likely be born with serious disabilities.

Toni never once let this news bring her spirits down. She maintained a positive attitude throughout this journey despite all of the possibilities and set-backs. She carried her child full term and delivered a completely healthy baby girl! Toni’s daughter is now thirty-three years old and is living a perfectly healthy, normal life. Toni also beat the odds and those six months have turned into twenty-nine years.  

No stranger to health problems, despite a healthy lifestyle, Toni late suffered a heart attack. Three years ago, Toni also had a recurrence of her breast cancer. Now, as before, she chooses to live day-by-day and she does not dwell on what happened yesterday. Toni positively says “if you are worried about tomorrow you miss out on today.” Throughout her journey, she has done some serious positive-thinking as well as trusting her faith. She strongly believes in the power of prayer, because of the miracles God has given her. Toni believes that although her faith was strong before her diagnosis, it had gotten stronger throughout her journey. Toni’s ability to defy the odds and to do so with such a positive outlook is incredibly inspiring. To this day, Toni is very excited to still have the opportunity to accomplish all of her goals and dreams. Her next journey: zip-lining in Australia within the next year!