The Daily Dispatch

Breckenridge resident Sharon Olson knew she was a candidate for cancer because of her family's history of the disease. But she was still in shock when she heard the news.

"I'm not one to get too overly excited about everything," said Olson, a bookkeeper at Minn-Kota Ag Products. "It was scary, but I had faith in my doctors and I knew I'd be OK."

In March of 1998, she was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer at Dakota Clinic in Wahpeton. Doctors discovered a lump after her annual mammogram.

"(The mammogram) was the only way it was deduced," she said. "I couldn't feel it, the doctors couldn't feel it."

Olson went in for a biopsy and told her surgeon to remove the breast if it was cancerous.

"I didn't want to have to go back in again," she said.

Weeks later she underwent surgery for a single mastectomy at St. Francis Healthcare Campus and had follow up treatments with an oncologist at Dakota Clinic in Fargo.

"There was no sense waiting around," said Olson. "I wanted to get it over and done with."

Asked if she was concerned about the mastectomy, she said she didn't have second thoughts.

"My philosophy was that I was damaged - get rid of it," she said.

After the surgery, Olson had to go through six months of chemotherapy and still considers herself to be lucky. As a significant amount of her muscle was removed, she had to learn how to move her arm again. But very few cancer cells were discovered in her lymph nodes and she experienced a light treatment regiment.

"I never lost my hair, I never really got sick," she said. "Then I was on Tomoxicin for five years, and that was probably the worst treatment. It made me tired all of the time, but other than that, nothing."

After ten years of beating cancer, Olson sits on the finance committee and takes the meeting notes for Relay for Life. As the disease consumed the lives of both of her parents and her aunt is a breast cancer survivor, she felt she needed to get involved. Two years ago, her husband died from heart complications and leukemia.

Olson said her experience has also inspired her only daughter to get examined on a regular basis. If there is one thing she would advise both men and women, it would be to go in for their annual exam.

"Get all the cancer check ups you can, it's the only way they can prevent it," she said. "If they check early enough, and you can get treatment, hopefully you can also be a survivor."

As the month of October honors breast cancer survivors, women living in Minnesota are encouraged to contact the Sage Screening Program at 1-888-6-HEALTH. Women in Richland County can call Women's Way at 642-7735.

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