Double the pain, double the courage

When Patria Baugh spent over a decade taking care of her autistic daughter, Leah, she thought she was facing the greatest battle of her life.

However, it was only preparing her for a tougher challenge: breast cancer.

The Jamaica-born Baugh now lives in Georgia in the United States. However, she spent 27 years in Connecticut, where she migrated with her parents.

October will always be significant to Baugh, as not only is it Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but the period she received her diagnosis in 2020.

She discovered it in her right breast after doing a routine annual mammogram.

“I had no signs, nothing. There were no lumps, nothing that I could see that was showing me that I had any sign of cancer; but it was shown on a mammogram and it showed four little bumps. Three were cancerous after the biopsy,” she added.

In the first week of December when she underwent an MRI, it emerged that there were more lumps in her left breast.

“At that time, I made a decision that I wanted to have a double mastectomy. It was a decision that I made without skipping a heartbeat,” Baugh told The Gleaner.

Her double mastectomy was scheduled for December 15 and she stayed in the hospital for three days to recover before being discharged.

Baugh recalls the struggle of deciding whether to go flat-chested or to undergo breast reconstruction.

After doing “a lot of homework”, she underwent surgery in August and is slated to do a couple of operations for nipple reconstruction.

She gives thanks for the love of her mother and a mentor who is a breast cancer survivor.

“My mother, who is my rock, basically stayed at my house. At the time, I was living in Connecticut, last year, at the height of the coronavirus,” she said.

Her hair has started falling out, but she has found a silver lining in the dark cloud.

“At least I get to rock cute wigs,” she quipped, laughing.

Baugh is now undergoing chemotherapy.

That has meant initiation into gruelling joint pain and days where she just lay down because of the unbearable agony. She has even weighed the option of stopping her course of meds because of the drowsiness.

But cancer has helped to find previously untapped reserves of grit to clench her teeth and down mugs of coffee to combat her new foe.

Baugh's vision in her right eye has been diminishing as well, but optimism radiates through the pain.

“I have great faith and I know God's got my back, so whatever this journey is, I know He's got me,” she said.

Her major concern is for her 15-year-old special-needs daughter, Leah.

“I think about my daughter and I think about if that happens, I won't be able to see her go to places where she can be successful. That's been my main goal since knowing she was special needs,” she said.

Leah is high-functioning and has adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity (ADHD), which made it difficult for her to understand the torment her mother was going through at the onset of her breast cancer battle.

Using the analogy of a squatter, Baugh illustrated to her daughter the four stages of cancer - from initially trespassing, metaphorically, to “when the entire house is completely in disarray”.

“This journey has not been easy for her because kids on the spectrum, they don't process things very well,” she said.

Describing the last 12 months of her life as “tearful, fearful, hurtful, painful,” she has used life in the slow lane to focus on her relationship with God.

Baugh faces a tough future with three and a half more years to go with one medication and 10 years on another.

Her advice to women is to ensure they have adequate health insurance.

She now owes just US$4,000 on her medical bill and can't imagine how she would have mustered the full amount without a safety net.

“Everything was paid by insurance. I didn't have to pay one thing. Insurance covered my hospital 100 per cent. Insurance covered all of the surgeries I had to have. Insurance covered literally everything,” she said.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com