By Barbara Pierce
Meet Carol Hamlin Buczek, a 60-year-old Mohawk Valley resident with a busy career and an active volunteer life. As president of Tours by Design in Hinckley and very involved as a volunteer with the American Cancer Society, she’s not just surviving, she’s thriving.
She was told she had breast cancer on June 9, 2015.
“That date does stick in my head! When you hear that, your life changes! It’s never the same,” she said. “For me, I never had a lump. But just before my yearly mammogram, I no-ticed a strange indentation.”
“I had an ultrasound, then a biopsy. Half of me was thinking ‘I’ll be OK’; half of me was thinking ‘This is it!’” she added. “The day after my biopsy, the doctor called me and said ‘You have cancer.’ That did throw me for a loop!”
Buczek had triple-negative breast cancer, a rare, aggressive type of breast cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, triple-negative breast cancer grows and spreads faster, has fewer treatment options and tends to have a worse prognosis. The term triple-negative refers to the fact that the cancer cells don’t have estrogen or progesterone receptors and don’t make much of one protein. The cells test ‘negative’ on all three tests. It accounts for 10%-20% of breast cancers.
“I had the full gambit of treatment,” continued Buczek. “I had a lumpectomy, which is a breast conserving surgery. Then I had 24 rounds of chemotherapy each week, and 36 rounds of radiation therapy. I went through treatment for two weeks shy of one year.”
As Buczek is self-employed, owning her own business, Tours by Design, which provides quality bus tours for groups and individuals, she needed to continue to run her business, so she worked most days. A very brave and tough thing to go through.
“That was a difficult year,” she said.
However, her difficulties didn’t end with her last treatment. As her treatment had been aggressive, there were many crushing side effects. Some of these side effects from the chemo and radiation therapy are still with her.
“Doctors treat the cancer, but they don’t always tell you about the side effects. The side effects are devastating!” she said. “I was so tired; I had no energy, no strength. Some of the side effects are visible, some are not visible. Some will be with me forever. They don’t go away.”
“I learned about side effects from the support groups I went to,” she continued. “I started with an online group for people with triple-negative breast cancer. Then I went to in-person support groups at Slocum-Dixon and Faxton-St. Lukes. Support groups are incredibly valuable. You can share things you don’t want to share with your family. You don’t want your family to know your fears.”
“I’ve gradually gotten back in control of my life,” she continued. “I used to wake up every morning thinking about this cancer I had, and it would be the last thing I thought about before I fell asleep. It consumed me.
“I did move past it. Though I definitely have concerns — like will it come back?”
“At one point my sister said ‘You got this for a reason. How can you make it a positive?’ I thought about that and considered what I could do to make it a positive. That’s why I be-came an advocate,” she said.
As an advocate, Buczek gives survivor speeches and is active on the Making Strides Team, which raises money for cancer patients. “We provide services to patients, like rides to their treatment, overnight stays for the patient and their family for their treatments,” she explained.
And it funds the Reach to Recovery program, which matches patients with survivors who have been trained to answer their questions and provide much needed support.
Making Strides Against Breast Cancer of Utica, presented by Upstate Cancer Center, is a noncompetitive walk for breast cancer survivors, people living with breast cancer and those who care about them. The annual walk will be Oct. 22. For more information about the walk, call 315-2527-7386 or email Robert Elinskas at robert.elinskas@cancer.org
“It does make a difference,” Buczek said. “This is why we raise the money.”
In addition to funding services for local breast cancer patients, the funds that are raised by the walk also go towards life saving breast cancer research.
“People don’t understand breast cancer; a lot of people downplay it, they say ‘At least it’s not as bad as lung cancer,’ or other things to downplay it. But people do die from breast cancer,” she said.
“Get screened,” she urged. “Be aware. The earlier you treat it, the better your outcome will be!”