[ Post a Response | Dory's ]
Posted by David on October 13, 2009, 9:42 am
74.101.193.27
Ohio wife, husband both battling breast cancer
Mon Oct 12, 3:04 pm ET
MONROE, Ohio – A husband and wife are both undergoing treatment for breast cancer in a case that illustrates how the disease can strike both sexes. Mike and Barbara Welsh, of Monroe, in southwestern Ohio, each had surgery this year after separate discoveries that they had breast cancer.
Barbara Welsh, 63, had surgery in January, went through chemotherapy and is now starting radiation treatments.
After surgery in July, her 62-year-old husband is determining the next step in his recovery, which may include chemotherapy and radiation. He had a modified radical mastectomy on his right breast.
Mike Welsh says he is speaking up about his cancer to make other men aware that breast cancer is not just something that strikes women.
"If I could help 10 people or 100, that's a start," said Welsh, a retired AK Steel bricklayer.
Male breast cancer is still rare, with about 1,900 cases expected to be diagnosed this year, with about 440 men dying from the illness.
Mike Welsh first noticed something was wrong when he got into his car and felt discomfort as he strapped the seat belt across his chest.
After his wife began her treatments, he asked his doctor if men could get breast cancer. His doctor referred him to the Compton Center at Atrium Medical Center, in Middletown, where he got the diagnosis.
The couple, married 41 years, laugh about their experience to help stave off the depression that sunk in after their diagnoses.
"You've got to laugh at it," Mike Welsh said. "You have good days, bad days and better days. We're having fun with it."
He and his wife joke that she glows from radiation treatment that she has begun.
"I'm going to set her outside for Halloween," Mike Welsh said.
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Responses:
For those who might be late comers to this board, Dory was a poster who we will remember as one who gave of herself so others survivors might smile. She always kept this board moving with her inspirational poems, jokes and riddles. Most will give Dory credit for energizing this board. She was an inspiration to everyone on this board. In that spirit, let us
continue to post in Dory’s memory so she might smile down on us and give us the same inspiration. Therefore, we have named the board, Dory's Board, in her memory. 11/11/01 (Dory was the first to call attention to the significance of 9/11, re: WTC tragedy, i.e. 911 for emergency). Let me be the first to note all the ones in the above date, indicating she was No. 1 on our board.