(Pictured above are Janet, her daughter Cindy and the bride, her granddaughter, Emilie. Photo emailed from Janet.)
Staff meetings at Joy to Life are like most – lots of planning, idea sharing and deadline setting. It keeps our small staff hopping, but for good reasons. However, when a team member says “I’ve got a story to share,” the mood of the room changes. We are ready to listen because these stories make all the hard work so worth it.
The story of Janet Bolton was my WOW moment. To get all the details, I called Janet and asked if we could share her story on our blog and was so excited when she said yes! Janet was a delight to talk with and her story is an important one for all of us.
Janet and her husband, Jim, are what us southerners would lovingly call “snowbirds”. They make an annual trip to Orange Beach, Alabama each year from their home in Ohio to play golf, relax and enjoy the beauty of the beach life. Jim is the avid golfer, while Janet enjoys lap swimming at the local Gulf Shores recreation center.
While Janet was visiting the rec center one day in January, she picked up a Joy to Life Shower Card. Our shower cards are small, bold pink laminated cards that are 2-sided. It was created to be hung in the shower as a reminder to do a breast self-exam each month. It has easy step-by-step instructions and a little pink punch-out dot that you remove each month to help you remember your last self-exam.
She took the card home, placed it on her nightstand and moved on with her daily routine. The shower card laid there for a long while but remained a reminder, each time Janet saw it, that maybe she did need to do this self-exam. However, breast cancer was not prevalent in her family so there’s really no reason to think about this, right? After all, Janet was in her 80’s, enjoyed exercising and was in good health.
Then one day, about a month after picking up the self breast check shower card, she noticed an itch on her right breast. It was different and she knew the time was now to do the self-breast exam. She found a lump and, because of previous knowledge of what a suspicious lump would feel like, she knew immediately she needed to get to a doctor.
Within an hour, she was in a waiting room at a nearby clinic. Mammograms were ordered and later that day she shared her news with Jim. In a meeting with the doctor a few days later, she and Jim were told she had Stage 1 Malignant breast cancer and, as Janet puts it so well, “her mind went into outer space.” A biopsy was scheduled the following week and because it was difficult to speak without crying, she emailed the news to her children.
How quickly life changed. She found the lump on Monday, had a mammogram on Wednesday and was back home in Ohio on Saturday to move forward with the process. More tests and doctor visits in Ohio and her surgery was scheduled less than 5 weeks from the day she found the lump. Her family rallied around her and provided loving support. Her husband Jim was her “pillar of strength” and took her to movies to help get her mind off of it and her neighbor, who was recovering from breast cancer, offered helpful insights.
After surgery she learned that she had found the lump so early that no chemo or radiation was needed. She had a complete recovery. As Janet says in the first chapter of her memoir that is in the works, “My journey was quite difficult emotionally at times, but I think I managed it well. I remember vividly the phone call from Emilie, my granddaughter, who was in uncontrollable tears as I comforted her. I remember the love and support of Jim, our 8 children, and 17 grandchildren. Truly, I am a very lucky lady!”
As life was getting back to a new normal, Janet’s daughter Cindy spoke with her mother about sending a donation to the Joy to Life Foundation. Janet wholeheartedly agreed and our team at Joy to Life was very moved by their gracious monetary donation to the foundation.
At the end of our phone conversation, she shared with me that she had an important event coming up in a few days. It was her granddaughter’s wedding. I asked her if she wouldn’t mind emailing a photo of her with her daughter and granddaughter at the wedding when she got a chance and the next week, the photo arrived in my email box. It made my day!
I’m so happy Janet picked up that shower card! And of course, each time I think about it the happy tears start flowing out of me. Thank you Janet for sharing your story with us!