Susan Steck recalls her fights against breast cancer

“We really need to encourage women to do two things: get the mammograms and the other one is to have the BRCA test,” Susan Steck said. “It’s a blood test that identifies mutations in genes that make you more susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer.”

Steck is a two-time survivor of breast cancer. Both times her cancer was found through her regular mammogram check-ups.

Steck was first diagnosed with breast cancer in November of 1998 when she was working at what is now Enterprise State Community College.

“I had always had regular mammograms and about two years prior to this diagnosis, they noticed a very tiny spot,” Steck said. “So I was going in about every six months for check-ups and things were doing okay. I went in in March and things were okay, but by November it had grown to the size that required a mastectomy not just a biopsy. So that’s what we did in November.”

During this time, Steck opted to have both chemotherapy and radiation treatments. She said that radiation was easier on the body than chemotherapy.

“I’m not going to tell you it’s any fun,” Steck said. “I was able to schedule my chemos on Thursday because it’d be about Saturday when it would hit me so I could recuperate over the weekend.”

She said her scheduling allowed her to feel some sort of control over her life.

“Maybe that’s a way of looking at it is I still had a sense of control over my life,” Steck said. “It wasn’t all taken away from me by this disease. I wasn’t breast cancer; I was still me who also had breast cancer.”

Her treatments would last until Spring of 1999 and during this time, Steck said she managed to continuing working.

“I didn’t want to let things slide because that would be like giving into it,” Steck said.

She also noted that she had a unique support group at her work since two other employees, the month before Steck and the other the month after Steck, had been diagnosed with breast cancer as well.

“We three women were doing it together,” Steck said. “We had a strong knowledge of what was happening and the desire to help each other through it.”

Steck said that a coworker passed away a couple years after being diagnosed and the other had a reoccurrence at the same time as Steck. That coworker passed away recently.

“I’m the only survivor and I feel pretty lucky about that,” Steck said. “But at the same time grateful that neither of those (people) are still suffering.”

Steck said she remembered the last thing her oncologist said in 1999.

“At the very last visit with my oncologist—who was a very frank man—his very last words to me were, ‘I’ll see you again,’” Steck said. “He knew that this stuff reoccurs even though this stuff goes away or lies dormant for a long time and it still comes back.”

Steck was diagnosed with breast cancer again in February of 2018. It was also found through a regular mammogram check-up.

“I was really surprised,” Steck said. “I was rocking along, everything was hunky dory, (I) didn’t have any pain or symptoms, didn’t have anything. So it was far more out of the blue than the first one was.”

Steck chose to undergo an another mastectomy.

“The cancer was much smaller the second time, I could have just had the lump removed but if I had done that I would have had to have both chemo and radiation,” Steck said. “I thought ‘There’s no reason for that’ so I chose the mastectomy again on the other side and had just the chemo after that.”

Steck said the chemo treatment this time around was a bit harder on her.

“(I had) More trouble with nausea and fevers and that kind of thing,” Steck said.

It was during her second bout with breast cancer that Steck decided to shave her head.

“I remember looking back at the first time and thinking—we all thought we had to wear wigs to cover up that we were going through this,” Steck said. “There were few women at that time who went bald until it was done. I thought, ‘There’s no reason to hide that I have cancer. I’m not going to go around infecting people or scaring people off.’ It started some wonderful conversations in fact.”

In July of 2018, Steck received her final treatment in the fight against her second bout of cancer. She survived.

Steck said that it was her faith, her husband, her family and all the support she received from everyone around her that allowed her to get through both bouts.

“My faith in God and support of people are what got me through it,” Steck said.

Steck credits her husband’s sense of humor with helping her through her fights with cancer.

“That (his sense of humor) and our faith have probably been the hallmarks of our successful marriage for 50 years,” Steck said. “It gets us through everything.”

Steck expounded on how she finds solace through her faith in God.

“I know God is present in me, around me, he’s everywhere in every situation guiding me, leading me and strengthening me always,” Steck said. “So I just grasp onto that from moment to moment.”

She provided some advice to people who have been diagnosed with breast cancer.

“Don’t withdraw,” Steck said. “Put yourself out there. It takes the sting out of it to talk about it. Jesus always named the demons and we should name ours as well because it helps us take away their power. So I would encourage them to still be out, accept help—that was my biggest learning—and share your story.”