Editor's note: This story appeared in our October issue of Healthy Living, on Oct. 2, 2020.
TORRINGTON – Rita Griggs, now 65, was a “fitness center queen” who could outrun almost anybody when she noticed her breast was red, sore and swollen one day roughly 10 years ago.
Given her bigger bra size, she thought it was irritation from running. So, she tried wearing three sports bras at once, which didn’t help. Finally, friends convinced her to go to the doctor, who diagnosed her with inflammatory breast cancer, a rare form that accounts for only 1% to 5% of all breast cancers, according to the American Cancer Society. It was even more rare when she was diagnosed in 2010, just two days before Thanksgiving.
An Instructional Support Specialist at Torrington Learning Center, Griggs didn’t have health insurance.
Griggs remembers one chemotherapy treatment costing $15,000 and a shot to increase white blood cell counts ringing in at $7,000. With these figures that make up only a small portion of the cost of cancer treatment, Griggs said she was ready to declare medical bankruptcy.
Not only would she be in for the fight of her life, but she’d also have to find a way to pay for it. Griggs’ oncologist in Cheyenne, Maristela Batezini, M.D., made sure that wouldn’t happen.
“I’m crying because I don’t have insurance, and she’s like, ‘we’re going to take care of you,’” Griggs said.
Batezini referred Griggs to the Wyoming Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection program through the Wyoming Department of Health, which paid for the majority of her treatment, she said. The program ended soon after her regular treatments did.
It was reinstated in 2017, accord- ing to the DOH website, but there’s now a guideline requiring recipients’ household income be equal or less than than 250% of the Federal Poverty Line, a threshold Griggs doesn’t think she’d meet now.
“I don’t think people that have never had to worry about (insurance), don’t realize how huge it is,” Griggs said. “I don’t know how I got lucky, but I did.”
Griggs recognizes her luck, but also her privilege. She had allies in the medical field willing to help her. She was able to research programs that would help alleviate the cost of treatment. She was able to put gas in a reliable car, drive the 85 miles to Cheyenne and stay with her son, J.J.
A loaded diagnosis
Griggs received word of her diagnosis just two days before Thanksgiving. She was healthy and in her fifties, which is why she was “in disbelief and shock” when she got the call.
A bubbly personality with an authentic laugh, it’s hard to imagine Griggs taking the news with anything but a positive attitude, but that was not the case.
“When I got that call, I thought I was gonna die within months,” she said. “For a year, I didn’t buy new clothes. I didn’t buy anything for the house. I didn’t buy shoes, because I’m not going to need them.”
And Griggs loves to shop.
“I believed I wouldn’t be around to use anything,” Griggs said. “You hear all these stories about people that die and I thought I’d be one of them.”
In the end, she’d be part of the 72% of women who survive a diagnosis of stage III breast cancer, according to BreastCancer.org.
Before doctors could decide whether or not Griggs should have a double mastectomy, they tested her for BRCA, the genetic mutation that increases chances of developing breast cancer. The gene is hereditary. Her sister had breast cancer, which gave Griggs an 87% chance of developing the disease herself.
“So I was kind of screwed,” she said.
Griggs also has two kids, Amy and J.J. who tested positive for the same BRCA gene.
Amy Fales, who was 25 at the time of her mom’s diagnosis, said she’s been able to see an oncologist and explore her options.
“Now, it’s just a part of life and I have accepted it, just going forward with it instead of dwelling about it,” Fales said.
Griggs said it was difficult to convince her son to get tested since breast cancer is thought to primarily affect women. According to the Susan G. Komen foundation, less than one percent of all breast cancer cases occur in men. Still, it’s possible and J.J. has the BRCA gene, too.
“I have to do blood work every year and I’m supposed to do self breast exams,” he said.
“Knowledge is power, so that’s what we’re going with,” Griggs said.
Staying positive
It’s impossible to imagine the physical effects of chemotherapy and radiation unless you’ve experienced it yourself. And Griggs doesn’t mince words.
“Truly they are hell,” she said. “They really are as bad as people say.”
Food doesn’t taste like it should. It’s exhausting. Still, throughout her chemo treatments, Griggs continued to go to work. She received chemo every three weeks for four months, followed by a surgery, followed by 30 rounds of radiation, five days per week.
Griggs isn’t a stranger to facemasks as most were at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Near the end of her treatments when she was at her weakest and immunocompromised, she’d wear them around the kids at TLC.
“With chemo, you have to be so careful about being around sick people and germs and all that,” she said. “I wish these were around when I was doing chemo, then I would’ve felt better.”
The treatment days weren’t all bad, Griggs said. She had her Ipad, books and friends in other patients who were in the same situation.
She stayed with her son in Cheyenne when she had to, and made it a point to do as much as she could until it was no longer possible.
Throughout her treatment, Griggs would walk from her son’s house to the hospital. By her last few radiation appointments, she could barely get into the car to drive herself, she said.
Despite her positivity throughout most of the process, there were still low points. She pleaded with her oncologist, Batezini, to let her reschedule a surgery set to take place on Easter, because she wanted to have one more Easter with her family.
“I was sure I was gonna die,” Griggs said.
She said Batezini’s response was, “No, we’re doing it now. There will be many more Easters.”
Since then, Griggs has had 10 more Easters, and counting.
Life after
Today, Griggs still sees her oncologist, Batezini, in Cheyenne three times throughout the year.
Her immune system is stronger now, but she developed asthma after undergoing breast cancer treatment, putting her in the high risk category for COVID-19. She wears a bedazzled compression sleeve on her arm because of Lymphadema, swelling in the arm caused by the removal of lymph nodes in cancer treatment.
Griggs celebrates her life now. During treatment when she made frequent trips to Cheyenne, she drove a Honda Civic in snow, rain, sleet and hail, no matter what. She decided to buy a Subaru Impreza and recently upgraded to a Subaru Forester, which has more room for her granddaughter.
“I told myself when I got done and got back on my feet, I was never going to have a car like that again, I was gonna have a car I could drive,” she said.
As a breast cancer survivor, Griggs advises women and men who notice anything strange about their bodies to “go right away, don’t put it off.
“I put mine off for a few months, more than probably a few months,” she said. “And by the time I went, it was stage three. I could have maybe had a little bit easier chemo or who knows.”
For those battling cancer or any other disease, she said there will be good days and bad days, but you have to be like Griggs: stubborn and defiant.
“Don’t give up, don’t get down,” she said. “Don’t let it take over your life.”
