Sam Kampo is my youngest son. He was 19 when we found out he had lymphoma.

In 2007 during spring break our family took a vacation in Cancun. At the end of the trip Sam started having abdominal pains which we assumed were from the food or water in Mexico. After he returned home, the pains increased to the point of going to the Emergency Room. A cat scan was done and we were told that they thought Sam had a tumor in his stomach which looked cancerous. Because Sam was so sick, he was admitted into the hospital and ended up being in the hospital for 12 days. During that time a biopsy and many tests were done. Sam was diagnosed with Large B Cell Lymphoma, which is not common in someone his age. Dr. Mortara, his oncologist, had Sam start chemotherapy while in the hospital. When he was discharged, Dr. Mortara referred him to a lymphoma specialist in Madison. The specialist recommended a very aggressive chemotherapy treatment where Sam would have chemotherapy administered for five days straight in the hospital. He would then have 16 days out and return again for another five days; each time increasing the dosage. Dr. Mortara learned the chemotherapy regimen so that Sam could be treated here rather than have to travel to Madison each time.

Sam was also finishing his first year of college. He was very fortunate that his professors worked with him so that he could complete the year.

Sam finished his last treatment in August 2007 and tests showed his cancer was gone. In March of this year he had his six month check-up and there are no signs of cancer. He is finishing up his second year of college, working and doing great.

by Robyn Marie Metko 

For Deb Lewis, a promise made to her husband truly is a lifesaver. The executive director of the Fox Valley Humane Association was too busy being wonder woman to go for regular check-ups. After her husband, Brian, was diagnosed with melanoma in 1994, Deb promised to go for both a physical and a mammogram each year. Brian made sure she kept her promise, ultimately saving her life.

After a mammogram in 2001, Deb learned she had a lump in her breast. Two days later, she underwent a lumpectomy. The tumor was a stage one, located in her back chest wall. Because of the location, a self-exam would not have caught it. Even the surgeon who removed the tumor could not locate it without the mammogram. Because the tumor was removed at stage one, chemotherapy was not required. Instead, seven weeks of radiation therapy would follow.

Deb credits the support she received from her husband, friends, co-workers, radiation technicians and fellow breast cancer patients, as well as keeping an optimistic attitude, for her quick recovery and ability to work all the way through the treatments. Though she experienced fatigue, loss of appetite and burns from the radiation, Deb knows that the alternative would have been worse if the tumor had progressed to stage two or beyond.

In August 2002, Deb received terrific news that her cancer was in remission. A year after discovering the breast cancer, doctors found a tumor on her ovaries that proved to be benign. Deb has continued regular check-ups every six months and will continue yearly check-ups after she celebrates her second cancer-free anniversary.

Deb knows the importance of early detection. "I implore you to go for a mammogram regularly. It can save your life."

Photo courtesy of Portraits by Cheryl and Women Magazine, 2002

Jackie Burr, 64, of Neenah will be the first to admit she is occasionally a procrastinator, but the one matter she urges women never to procrastinate about is having a mammogram. Back in the late 1980s, she recalled, she kept putting off getting one. Thanks to "the persistence" of her doctor and her husband, however, she had one at Neenah's La Salle Clinic. It was the one that probably saved her life.

Burr's mammogram showed five areas of calcification in her right breast. The one that was biopsied proved to be cancerous. She said she wasn't "afraid" when she got that news. "I ... knew that it wasn't a lump yet and that it was in the very early stages as a result of having the mammogram. I guess I felt very fortunate that I finally listened and had the mammogram."

She had always been in the best of health to that point, Burr added, but she did come from a family with a history of breast cancer. Her sister had had it, too. Then the office manager for Direnzo Bomier Simonis & Miller, Neenah law and accounting firm, Burr explained that her employers urged her to seek a second opinion. She had as many as six or seven, she said. Each doctor she talked to urged her to have the calcifications removed.

Once she decided to have surgery, "everything moved fast." She had a single mastectomy. Nineteen lymph nodes also were taken from under her right arm. One showed a "minute bit of cancer." Several months of chemotherapy followed the surgery. During that time major support came from her employers. Because they knew the drugs made her very sick, they arranged for her to work mornings only.

The important thing now, said Burr, is that "I have been 13 years free. Had I not had that mammogram, I was told, seven years down the road I would have had a lump. But the cancer was caught early."

(This excerpt was written by Joanne Flemming and is provided courtesy of the Fox Cities Newspapers.)