In The Shadow of Breast Cancer

About the Book

P> "In the Shadow of Breast Cancer" is the true story of a wife´s 7-year struggle against breast cancer. The author, Robin Leatherman, shared 50 years of his life with Maria, the heroine of the story. It was not until more than seven years after Maria´s death that Rob was able to write this story about her terrible struggle.

In a quick flashback, the book tells of Maria´s shocking discovery of a lump in her right breast. It develops that the lump is cancerous, and Maria has a mastectomy. The days which precede and which follow the surgery are filled with worry and fear for both Maria and Rob.

In due time Maria buys a prosthesis, and a short time later begins to go out; just to dine, or for a quick shopping trip. Gradually Nini (knee-KNEE), as her family called her in Bahia, Brazil--where Navy Chief Warrant Officer Rob met her during WWII--begins to venture out of the house, still fearful that people will notice she is using a prosthesis in the right pocket of her bra.

Maria suffers from chest pains beneath the scar left by the mastectomy, but her doctor and the surgeon both pooh-pooh the pains. "They are only healing pangs from the operatiion, to be expected," they keep telling her. Over a period of many months, the pains becomes more intense, while Maria and Rob try to lead normal lives, including RV tours and vacations.

Finally, x-rays and scans show that Maria does have cancer beneath the site of her operation, and chest surgery is performed. There are two such operations, plus one to remove a lump from her armpit. Sadly, one chest incision becomes infected, and it takes weeks of special treatment, which Rob performs, to heal the wound near her breastbone.

Maria becomes a patient of the best oncologist in the hospital where she has been treating since the discovery of the cancer. After a period of time, her doctor and the oncologist send her to a radiologist, and she takes several weeks of radiation treatments at the hospital, until her chest is scorched.

Finally she goes on chemo-therapy treatments, and after a change of chemicals, she loses all of her hair, and buys turbans for wear at home, and wigs to wear in the street.

When Maria starts the lengthy chemo-therapy treatments at the same hospital, her son cautions Rob. "Tell the oncologist not to mess around, but to hit the cancer with a real blast from the very beginning." But when Rob tells the doctor about his son´s warning, the oncologist says he´s been treating cancer patients for years, and knows what he´s doing; that he "doesn´t want to go hunting a mosquito with an elephant gun."

Before Maria can take the chemo-therapy injections or infusions each time, she has to have a blood test. Oftenntimes the doctor has not studied the results of the blood tests, and Maria waits in the hos-pital room for an hour or two, only to learn she can´t take any chemo-therapy that day, or has to go on an oral type of treatment, meaning pills.

About the Author

Robin Leatherman was born in Cheyenne, grew up in Colorado and Oregon during the Great Depression, worked 60-hour weeks at age 12, and joined the Navy at 18. He was a shipfitter, hard-hat diver, and Chief Warrant Officer. He served through all of WWII, in the North Atlantic, in Brazil, and at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He married a Brazilian girl, Maria, and had a son and daughter. Rob lived in over 70 abodes coast to coast and border to border; visited every state in America and most National Parks; knows much of Brazil, parts of other countries, and several Caribbean islands including Cuba and Puerto Rico. He speaks Portuguese and some Spanish, and after careers in Insurance and Real Estate retired in St. Petersburg, Florida. He is writing a multi-volume autobiography, of which this book is part.