Pope John XXIII once said “Never hesitate to hold out your hand; never hesitate to accept the outstretched hand of another.”

Michele Brungardt’s father wrote this quote and 61 others in a 12-page letter on yellow legal paper to his daughter. Michele, a Lansing resident, read the quotations for inspiration as she received treatment for breast cancer.

These are the stories of three Leavenworth County women who were diagnosed with breast cancer. They are mothers, daughters and wives.

They are survivors.
 
———‘I just knew something wasn’t right’: The diagnosis

In 1995, Wanda Doty of Leavenworth was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, a disease of the lymph nodes. She received radiation treatments, but it wouldn’t be her last encounter with cancer.

Doty, 38, was diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2005. 

“I had learned from my previous experience,” Doty said as she recalled finding the lump in her right breast. “I had waited a long time with the first diagnosis of the Hodgkin’s disease, so when I felt the lump, I called the doctor the next day. At first, I just knew that something wasn’t right. I didn’t know that it was necessarily a cancer.”

Doty said she had a mammogram, and within a few hours, doctors told her that the mammogram was abnormal.

A biopsy was then scheduled. Doty said she requested a frozen section during the biopsy so she would know the results before she left the hospital.

“I was still in recovery when he came in,” Doty said. “I knew, before I ever left the hospital that day, that it was cancer.”

She cried.

“It was the only time in 10 years of dealing with cancer in general that I cried,” Doty said.

Doty’s 4-year-old daughter, Hannah, colored a picture as her mother recalled her emotions.

The mother’s eyes filled with tears, and she smoothed her daughter’s hair.

“She was 2. She was a baby,” Doty said as she looked down at Hannah. “I knew I had three kids. I had dealt with it before, and I didn’t understand why I was getting it again and had to deal with it again.”

Brungardt, 46, remembered every date affiliated with her breast cancer battle: On Aug. 7, 2006 — her mother’s birthday — Brungardt had a mammogram with clear findings and received the recommendation to follow up in one year.

She found the lump on Sept. 21, 2006. Michele immediately told her husband, Kerry.

“I knew,” she said. “I don’t know why. I don’t know how. I just knew in my heart what it was.”

Michele said her gynecologist told her it didn’t feel like a cancerous lump.

“I said, ‘No,’” Brungardt said. “I want to do something. This is scary, and I want to do something.”

On Sept. 29, 2006, Brungardt had a sonogram at Saint John Hospital. She said the radiologist told her, “It’s a good thing you do self-exams, my dear, because you have a malignancy.”

“I think I went into shock,” Brungardt said. “I started shaking. I got sick. I had to sit down. All of the questions just come into your brain — rapid fire.

“‘How am I going to tell my husband?’ He didn’t sign up for this,” Brungardt said. “‘How is this going to affect my boys?’”

In early March, Shari Kowalewski of Leavenworth held her two granddaughters on her lap. One of the little girls hit Kowalewski on the left side of her chest.

“It hurt, but I didn’t think anything of it at first,” Kowalewski, 50, said. “Then I noticed a knot there a day or two later.”

The lump was still there several weeks later, so Kowalewski had a biopsy during the first week in April. On April 11, she was diagnosed with breast cancer — her lumpectomy took place on April 15, and she received a mastectomy on May 2.

Shari said she remembers the dates because she had only been to the hospital three times prior to her breast cancer diagnosis: The three times that she gave birth to her children.

“The scary part about all that is she had her last mammogram in January — it was clear,” Chris, Shari’s husband, said.

All three of Shari’s children cried, but Shari and Chris did not.

“My initial response was, ‘OK, this is what we’ve got. Where do we go from here?’” Shari said. “Let’s get after it.”
 
———‘Battle mode’: The treatment

Because of the radiation treatment she received for Hodgkin’s disease, Doty said her radiation oncologist determined that she had to receive other forms of treatment to eliminate the risk of radiation double exposure.

Doty had already received a lumpectomy during her biopsy, so her next step was a mastectomy and chemotherapy treatments, she said. She started her eight treatments of chemotherapy in October 2005, with one treatment every three weeks.

After recouperating from her mastectomy, Kowalewski started chemotherapy on June 13. She completed her sixth and final chemotherapy treatment on Sept. 19. Her radiation treatments started on Oct. 13.

A family photograph taken shortly before Kowalewski’s diagnosis shows her short-length brown hair. The hair was a trademark among her children — she had so much of it.

Short silver hair now graces her head.

“It was hard for me because it came out almost within a two- or three-week time period,” Kowalewski said. “That was kind of hard. But, it’ll grow back.”

Brungardt said it took her a long time to say “I have breast cancer” without feeling like she was going to be sick. Her first chemotherapy treatment took place on Oct. 25, 2006. She had eight rounds of treatment every two weeks, and she finished on Feb. 7, 2007.

Her lumpectomy took place on Feb. 22, 2007. In March 2007, Brungardt started 30 rounds of radiation finished on April 20, 2007.

Brungardt’s best friend gave her a “faith and healing” journal and she wrote down everything — dates of certain events, conversations with doctors, how she felt and the questions she had.

“That journal just really kind of became a lifeline,” Brungardt said.

———‘A positive attitude will take you a long way’: The survival
 
Doty, now a survivor of two types of cancer, said her breast cancer survival has made her more appreciative.

“I was smarter the second time around — I didn’t wait,” Doty said. “It’s made me more aware of the fact that it really doesn’t matter who you are or how old you are or what you do — it can get you. I’m thankful for what I have, and I’m thankful that I’m here.

“A positive attitude will take you a long way,” she said. “You can’t let it beat you. You have to be strong. A lot of it is in the attitude.”

After her diagnosis, Brungardt said she wanted to crawl into a hole.

She wasn’t quite sure what she would do. But after sitting in her doctor’s office twice, she said something took over.

“I went into what I referred throughout my treatment as ‘battle mode.’ You have to get into battle mode, and you have to have a positive attitude,” Brungardt said.” As hard as the treatment is and the debilitation is, you’re nothing if you don’t have a positive attitude. You have to surround yourself with positive people.”

Kowalewski’s children, Tiffany, 29, Nicklas, 25, and Joanna, 20, surround her as she tells her story in the family’s living room. Her granddaughters, Mila, 5, and Alyssa, 2, play in the background.

Her No. 1 priority has always been her children, and Kowalewski said she knows her relationship with the children is “unconditional.”

“I live for this,” she said with her arms outstretched. “This is what I’m here for. My purpose is to be these kids’ mom and those two little girls’ grandmother. Everything else will fall into place.”