Arlene Polk is not the typical breast cancer survivor

Posted on WordPress October 20, 2014

 

  

In 1948, Arlene Polk was 33 and living on a farm in Mountain View, Mo., with her husband Kenneth and their three children: Jeannette, Edward, and Sharon.

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Everyday Arlene would fetch water from a pump for use in the house since they didn’t have running water but one day something changed.

Arlene remembers reaching down to pick up a pail of water. She felt a pain in her arm as the weight of the pail pulled at her muscles. The pain started in her right bicep and ended at a place in her breast.

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Arlene knew that something was wrong and mentioned it to her family. No one thought it was anything serious but Arlene knew she needed to get medical attention. She had felt a lump and it had been there for a year.

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“I had to lie to (Kenneth) to get the car,” said Arlene.

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It was blackberry picking time. The family would go over to Edward Rowlett’s, Arlene’s father, farm to pick blackberries for canning. They’d pick enough to keep the family in blackberries until the next season. But the farms were far enough away from each other that Arlene couldn’t carry them home. She would need the car to haul the berries. This gave Arlene a chance to see a doctor. The only problem was, she had to bring her children with her.

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“I bought the kids some (comic) books and they looked at them while I was in the doctor’s office,” said Arlene.

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The doctor confirmed that Arlene had a lump in her breast. He wanted to send her to a hospital in West Plains, Mo., to have the lump removed and analyzed. The doctor told her that if the lump proved to be malignant, they would have to remove her right breast.

 

About that same time, Arlene’s father came to

ask Kenneth to help him harvest his wheat crop.

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Kenneth told his father-in-law that he couldn’t

help him because he had to take Arlene to the

hospital. He explained about the lump in her

breast and the doctor’s decision to send her to the

hospital but Arlene’s father intervened. He insisted

that his daughter be taken to a cancer hospital in

Savannah, Mo.

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Kenneth and Brady Rowlett, Arlene’s brother, had

to overhaul their car so it could make the trip. “It

was 300 miles to Savannah,” said Arlene. “When we got up there, they examined me and said that it could be cancer and that if I had (a radical mastectomy) done, then I’d have a 50-50 chance.”

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Arlene decided to submit to the procedure.

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A radical mastectomy typically involves the surgical removal of the entire breast tissue, the overlying skin and nipple, the underlying pectoral muscles and all the lymph nodes in the armpit.