The Villages - October 2017 - 16

Dotty SaSmor
No oNe said the word. Six letters told a story
no doctor, nurse or patient wanted to hear - Cancer.
In the 1930s, breast cancer took Dotty Sasmor's
grandmother. In 1967, her mother was diagnosed. But
cancer was still a dirty word, and there was no such
thing as awareness, Sasmor said. People didn't wear
pink ribbons or race for the cure, and there weren't
many treatments available.
"My mother discovered the lump on her breast while
showering," Sasmor said. "The doctor did some
testing and then told her to get to the
hospital immediately."
But this was before informed
consent laws, so patients often didn't have the benefit
of hearing their options or
discussing the risks and
alternatives, Sasmor said.
"You did as your
doctor instructed, so my
mother had no idea what
was going to happen to
her. No one ever said the
word cancer, yet they did a
radical mastectomy."
The highly invasive and
disfiguring surgery rarely is performed anymore since less extensive surgery has proved to be equally
effective and less risky.
"It was extreme," Sasmor said. "Just like that, my
mother woke up and her breast was gone."
But even in that dark hour, traces of hope had
appeared.
"The next day, a neighbor - not even a friend
- took two busses to Mount Sinai Hospital in
Manhattan," Sasmor said. "She walked into my
mother's room and whispered, 'I had what you have' -
still no mention of cancer. Tell your doctor to give you

OCTOBER 2017

radiation.' Then the woman turned around and went
home. My mother believed doctors were gods, so I don't
know where she got the courage, but she told them she
wanted radiation."
Sasmor's mother lived 28 years after her surgery.
"That neighbor saved my mother's life," she said.
"God bless her - whoever she was."
Because of her family history, Sasmor began having
regular mammograms at age 40. In 2005, she was
sitting in the waiting room flipping through a
magazine and awaiting the results of her
routine test.
"Someone came in and said,
'The radiologist would like to
speak with you,'" Sasmor
said. "You don't want to
hear those words. I walked
into a room where all the
light boxes showed scans
I'd had from the previous
five years."
The woman began
circling shadows on the
films, and that's when
reality hit. And while breast
cancer is never convenient
or wanted, Sasmor said her
diagnosis eventually became a gift.
"I feel very fortunate that the
cancer was small and diagnosed early. I was
62 years old, and I had a lumpectomy and radiation. I
didn't know what impact it would have on my life, but I
never ever thought I would die."
Sasmor said her ordeal was not dramatic, yet it was
difficult.
"Every test I had led to another possibility," she said.
"Was the cancer in one breast or both? Was it in the
spine and the bone? Every test required another test.
Finally, I was scheduled for surgery three long months

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