Cancer Conversations

Kay is a leader. She’s known and respected for her leadership skills, her strategic thinking, her talent for guiding organizations toward success, her overall savvy. Her resume includes past president and chief operating officer of a major corporation, director and commissioner of numerous public and private organizations, author of articles on executive leadership, recipient of numerous awards and honorary designations. Her eyes are always on the future and she has many followers.

She’s also a realist. “When you’re in a leadership role, you delude yourself in thinking you’re in control,” she told me. “You think if you just plan enough or organize enough or bring enough teams together there’s no problem you can’t solve.”

Reality hit hard at age 63 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The idea of even having cancer was so far off her radar she didn’t take her husband to hear the result of tests she had been undergoing. “It hit like a brand new thought,” Kay says. But there it was. And it couldn’t be planned or organized away.

Taking control

Acknowledging the lack of control and the need to succumb to others’ expertise were huge and immediate challenges. There were, however, aspects of the situation she could and did control – from the outset. One of her leadership keys is bringing in the right team. Her initial medical team included her primary care doctor and a radiologist at whose behest she endured the poking, probing, raying and readings from a second mammogram, ultrasound and needle biopsy that a slight change from a past mammogram imposed. Possibly just scar tissue from an old biopsy, they surmised. And, when the finding came out negative, she accepted it with little thought.

Her radiologist, however, was not so accepting. Something, she felt, was not right so she called Kay back for another MRI. That image revealed what the doctor had suspected – a small, nearly hidden tumor that turned out to be larger and deeper than the first MRI had shown. Undiscovered, it could have had serious implications and bode eventual presence in the other breast. It needed to be removed.

And yet . . . despite having that right team, cancer did not figure into Kay’s life plan. Surely, she decided, there had been a mistake. Her body could not have betrayed her like this. Files must have been mixed up, names confused. An apologetic call would come soon to correct the situation.

No call came; she had it. Really. Cancer.

Even for someone so pragmatic, it hit to the core. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s Five Stages of Grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance – all arrived in varying intensity and at various times, and all were stops on what Kay describes as an exceedingly personal journey. Ignoring the emotions would have been impossible. Confronting them was necessary before she could move on.

And then, what to do? Pros and cons had to be tallied and assessed. Lumpectomy? Mastectomy? Single? Double? “This was an important decision,” she says. “I needed to understand what I wanted, what my fears were, and what outcome was going to be best for my life.”

Making Decisions

Looking at the situation in this manner took her back to the skill set where she was most comfortable: Analyze, set goals, move forward. How did she want to view her future? With as little fear and complication as possible. Did her breasts define her? No. Was her womanhood in question? No. Was she ready to be done with the disease and whatever it might present down the road? Yes.

Mastectomy appeared the best choice. “I talked over the options with my doctor who didn’t have any good reasons why I shouldn’t do that.” So they proceeded – with a double mastectomy followed by reconstruction. At six years out, she emphasizes it was the right decision for her. “There’s not a moment I have questioned it.”

The experience has redefined her attitude toward her future and herself. “Life is full of surprises, even when you’re doing your best to be healthy,” she says. Her desire for personal control continues in enhanced attention to her own health. The team that guides her now includes those with expertise in exercise, nutrition, and the latest research and thinking on supplements and other health issues. She eats well, exercises, lifts weights, does yoga and Pilates, focuses on being healthy. This all is valuable, she feels, for her family to witness – her husband, children and grandchildren. If cancer does return, “they will know I have done all I can and have not let them down.”

Taking the long view draws her back to the basics she has stressed in her leadership roles: Have a vision of the future, clarify and articulate what that future is, and figure out strategies to get there. Cancer has helped reinforce her desire to be a healthy, vital, engaged person for as long as she has to live. Today, she defines herself not as a breast cancer survivor, but as a person who is healthier because of breast cancer.  “All I have control over is myself,” she says with newfound strength. “I just focus on that.”

Final Note

I worked for Kay a while ago. Actually, she was my boss’s boss’s boss. I also know her personally and know she has a lot to teach. Real control is delusional, and when the going gets tough, get a team, think it through, chart the course, lead on.