Speaking of Cancer

If cancer hasn't touched you or someone you love yet, it will. But cruel and pervasive as this disease is, it is possible to live with it with courage, hope and, yes, even happiness. We asked a remarkable group of Southwest Floridians, who are living proof that disease cannot conquer the human spirit, to share their stories. Those stories are both wrenching and wonderful, revealing the grim costs-and, strange as it may sound, the unexpected rewards-of cancer, which all agreed had awakened them to a fuller understanding and appreciation of life. Heartfelt thanks to each of them for their candor and bravery, and to Steve Wheeler, former director of Naples' Cancer Alliance Network, for helping us to put together this article.

An obstetrician/gynecologist physician and former chief of staff at Naples Community Hospital, Frank Adiutori, 51, has survived nine years with a usually deadly form of brain cancer. He has discontinued chemotherapy because the effects threatened to become as lethal as the disease:

Ten years ago in August, I woke up with a headache but decided to play tennis with a friend. We were playing in intense heat, and the next thing I knew I woke up in an MRI freezing to death. "You have a tumor and you're really sick," the doctors told me. Then they called my family and said, "He's not going to live through the day. You better hurry up and come down here."

I lived through the day, and after they did a couple of biopsies, they said, "You've got a horrible tumor. Hardly anybody lives a few months. Nobody lives a year."

As a gynecologist, I dealt with cancer patients all the time. The people who said, "Woe is me"-they did terribly. They were in such a bad frame of mind, they couldn't put up with chemo, radiation, the stress of traveling or anything. But some people were tough. They'd say, "OK, what are we going to do?" I decided I would be like those people, because they did well. I would put up with anything, any radiation or chemo, no matter how horrible it was. I would just say, "OK. I'm going to be sick. Let's go."

So I got on the Internet, and my doctors and friends who are doctors helped me research things. It was so complicated that it made me wonder how laypeople, who don't have medical training and contacts, can ever figure out what to do.

I went to M.D. Anderson [in Houston], Harvard, Duke and Gainesville, and a bunch of different places. Some people said, "Do surgery." Others said no. One place said, "We can do the surgery and have minimal side effects." I asked, "Do you have a video of somebody with minimal side effects?" They showed me a person who had slurred speech and difficulty reading. If you can't speak, you can't be a physician. So we didn't go with the surgery.

We figured out a treatment plan with chemo and radiation. The chemo was horrible, and I had side effects, but I tried to go back to work after six months. But in medicine, you can't be 90 percent-if you're not 100 percent, you're not good enough. After trying for about a year, I had to give medicine up. That was the biggest blow-giving up the thing I enjoyed the most. I was depressed for a while. Then I said, "OK, I can't be what I've always dreamt of being and what I was. I need to do something else." I decided that if I couldn't be the best doctor I could be anymore, I wanted to be the best father, the best husband and the best friend I could, and that's what I focus on now.

I stayed on the chemo, but after a while, we realized it would kill me before the disease did, so we stopped it and just started doing MRIs every three or four months. You talk about apprehension. Just before I'm going to get these MRIs, I start thinking, "Oh, God. What are we going to find?"

Because the statistics-I never gave statistics to my patients-are terrible that you're going to make it five years or 10 years. Three good friends of mine got the same kind of tumor within a couple of months of mine. Two have passed away; Mike Watkins is still here, so he's my inspiration. So long as he is OK, things are good.

My patients and friends have been so kind. I got thousands of get-well cards and prayers and even holy water from Lourdes [France]. After surviving five years, I sent out thousands of letters to people whose babies I delivered, and we had a big party.

One thing people should know: I went to M.D. Anderson and Mass General, all of that, but I was able to get all of my treatment here. That allows you to be sick in your own bed, and that's so important. Our physicians and equipment are as good as any place in the country. You can go to these places for confirmation, which I did, but the doctors here are very talented. They're here for quality-of-life reasons.

My lifestyle has changed, but you know what? My life's better now than it was before-getting up all the time, delivering babies. It's ironic, but a few days before I got sick, I told my wife, "I'm going to have to slow down. This job is killing me." Now I play tennis and golf and bike and lift weights. I am serious about my health-I look at it as a job. I want to be around as long as I possibly can.

Naples architect Andrea Clark Brown, 51, was diagnosed with stage-one breast cancer last year; after chemotherapy and radiation treatments, she has been declared cancer-free:

Last July, I discovered a lump in my breast. I'd had fibroids, but this seemed different. I went to my doctor, who said, "You need to go have another sonogram, because I agree this appears to be more than the usual cyst." In August, I had a lumpectomy. I woke up with a friend leaning over me, crying. I said, "What's wrong?" And he said, "You have cancer." And I said, "Well, I'm glad we know." His reaction was, "You're treating it like a bad manicure."

But as long as I knew what was going on, I wasn't worried. The only news that was upsetting was that the chemo would throw me into menopause, because based on my family's history I wasn't expecting that to happen for some time. I didn't think, "I'm going to die." I thought, "Oh, I'm going to get old."

I did four sessions of chemotherapy three weeks apart. Right after the first one, so much hair started falling out that I shaved my head. I remember looking into the mirror and saying, "Oh, my God. I look like a Holocaust victim."

But I wasn't upset. It was just, "Now I have to figure out what to do with this." I decided to make a fashion statement. I got some little turbans and started wrapping things around them and sticking pins in them, and it changed my life. I'd walk down the street and people would look at me and say, "You look amazing. You look so beautiful." I mean, [that was] something I wanted my entire life, and it was happening as a result of this awful moment.

And I was more gregarious than I'd ever been before, because I had to be. It was wonderful for me-and for my friends-because they didn't feel uncomfortable with me. They saw that I was having a good time rather than being miserable, even though there were times during the chemo when I was so sick that I couldn't stand to smell anything.

The kind of cancer that I've had, science is very good with, so the prognosis is excellent. Still, when you get a little tweak here, a little tweak there, you start being nervous about your longevity.

I lost my father to cancer shortly before I got sick. That definitely brought me closer to my maker. My father and I were very close; I was the youngest child, and I was there when they diagnosed him. How ironic it was that, in all likelihood, I probably had cancer at the same time.

When my father died, I was going through a marriage that had failed. Whether that brought on or helped push forward the cancer in me, I don't know. At that time, my pastor said, "Move forward and don't look back." And he said, "God made you human for a reason."

I look at my illness as bringing me right to the core of being human. I was really thinking about being human for the first time-the breathing, the living, the loving, our relationships, what we say to each other. All of that became totally more important than anything else. It was being human that counted.

And you realize how much love there is out there. Everyone comes forward to support you. It is incredible. The way people treat me is totally different, and I hope I treat them better as well. Now I look at everyone with love. There's a joy in it that is huge.