Carol Wagner Leader Correspondent
Photo by Carol Wagner Kari Kristoff holds a picture of her sister, Dawn Pethke, who died from breast cancer in 2005.
Editor’s note: With October designated as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Leader is highlighting the stories of three local women who have dealt with cancer to remind readers of the importance of self-examinations and mammograms.
- A mammogram 18 years ago revealed Barb Bubolz had breast cancer. She had a lumpectomy and endured 33 rounds of radiation.
“I was told there was an 8 percent chance of it coming back,” said Bubolz, 70, who lives in Shawano.
In May, a mammogram detected another lump on her breast and cancer on her kidney. Bubolz had a mastectomy, and the kidney was removed. She is now on an estrogen blocker for five years.
- Kari Kristoff lost her sister, Dawn Pethke, to breast cancer in 2005. She was only 35 years old.
Pethke found a lump in her breast through self-examination in 2003. She was already in Stage 4. She had both breasts removed, followed by chemo and radiation.
When she wanted to have breast reconstruction, Pethke learned the cancer had spread. She had more chemo and radiation, along with experimental drugs.
“They did everything they could do,” said Kristoff, who lives in Shawano.
Pethke, who lived in Green Bay, spent most of the last seven months of her life in the hospital. During that second round of treatment, she not only lost her hair but also her toenails and fingernails.
Kristoff said her sister was an amazing, kind and loving person whose death affected her entire family.
“I was miserable,” Kristoff said.
Before she died, Pethke was tested for the BRCA gene that makes a person more susceptible to cancer. She had it. Kristoff was also tested and she had it, too. In July 2012, Kristoff had a double mastectomy and reconstruction.
“I decided when I hit 30 I was having it done,” said Kristoff, a stay-at-home mom with three children.
- Lois Ford and three of her sisters also have the BRCA gene and have had breast cancer.
Ford was 59 when she found a lump in her breast through self-examination in August 1996.
“I thought it would go away,” Ford said. “I didn’t think anything of it.”
Two weeks later, she had an appointment for a physical. The doctor found the lump. A biopsy confirmed it was cancer.
“I was devastated,” Ford said.
When Ford and her husband, Don, who have been married 56 years, got home, she went into the bedroom and cried, she said. Don went in the garage and cried.
“He said, why couldn’t it have been me,” Ford said.
Two years later, Don was diagnosed with lung cancer. He has also had skin and bladder cancer.
The surgeon recommended a lumpectomy, but Ford made up her mind to have a mastectomy.
“I’m just going to have it removed,” she said.
Ford came home from the surgery with tubes and bandages. Her daughters-in-law came to help her.
“My family was just wonderful,’ she said.
Ford got a prosthesis rather than go through breast reconstruction.
“I didn’t want to deal with that,” she said.
Ford had additional biopsies on her left breast over the years, and everything has been fine. She has been cancer-free for 19 years.
“I don’t think about it anymore,” Ford said — except when she goes to the doctor for her annual physical.
“I think, oh, another year,” she said.