Rosa’s story

    “You have breast cancer.” That’s what Rosa Michaud, of Presque Isle, was told in the spring of 1991.
    A routine mammogram had found a mass so Dr. Bruce Alexander referred Rosa to Dr. Ronald Rohe at Aroostook Cancer Care.
    “When they told me I had breast cancer, I thought: ok, this is it. The end,” said Rosa. “I started giving away a lot of stuff. I tried to prepare.”
    “I remember Mom was told what to expect and she had a little meeting with the family,” said Vi Belanger, Rosa’s youngest daughter. “Mom told us, straight-faced, ‘I have cancer. It’s going to be alright, we’re going to do what we need to do.’ We were stunned. We all thought we needed to be tough around Mom, but she was the one who was our rock.”
    Rosa began her fight with cancer by having a mastectomy, followed by nine months of chemotherapy.
    “My lymph nodes showed nothing – we had caught the cancer early enough that it had not spread,” said Rosa. “That’s the first time I really cried in this whole ordeal; when they told me it was all gone. Everything you’ve been feeling, you’ve been holding to yourself, you let go.”
    Rosa was horribly sick for the first two days after every chemo session. She was constantly nauseated and weak. She had a hard time with large groups of people which was especially difficult because she came from a large family who were very supportive.
    “It was hard to stay away,” said Vi. “Even though Dad was the best nurse, you want to help.”
    “Food was terrible; everything tasted like metal,” said Rosa. “But water – I couldn’t get enough water, especially from my daughter Vi’s house.”
    The slightest smell would cause Rosa to gag. Her family and friends had to avoid using perfumes, cooking certain things, and making sure anything they had with them had no scent.
    It was difficult to be near large groups of people, but Rosa’s grandchildren would stay with her and visit one-on-one. The emotional support they offered gave her the strength to keep fighting. She would watch cartoons quietly with the grandchildren or her children would just sit with her and talk. The family became even closer during those difficult months.
    “You feel down – you are depressed when you go through chemo,” said Rosa. “It’s to be expected. When you feel that way, it’s so wonderful to have any kind of support. Friends and family would write me supportive notes and letters. It was beautiful and so reassuring.”
    At follow-up appointments after her mastectomy she consulted with Dr. Rohe regarding her family history and her cancer journey. Rosa opted to have a mastectomy on her remaining breast in order to reduce her risk of a reoccurrence. While she had the option to go through a rebuild after the two mastectomies, Rosa decided not to.
    “It does worry you; once you’ve had one removed, you constantly worry about the possibility of cancer in the other,” said Rosa.
    Once Rosa was cancer-free, she began her campaign amongst her own family to be vigilant about their health. Among Rosa’s parents, her 11 siblings and many nieces and nephews there were nine cases of breast cancer, three cases of colon cancer, one case of prostate cancer, one case of cervical cancer, one case of brain cancer, one case of throat cancer, and one case of skin cancer.
    “Cancer is so prevalent in our family,” said Vi. “It is always the elephant in the room.”
    Rosa is now the advocate for her family. She checks up on all of them and encourages routine screens. She refuses to allow cancer to continue to be the elephant in the room. She has helped her children in creating a medical history of her family and participated in genetic mapping.
    “I will always believe that life is a gift,” said Rosa. “Every day is a miracle and I feel as though I can enjoy life even more, knowing that others can learn something from my experience.”