Our People
By Tim Gallagher - tgallagher@siouxcityjournal.com | Posted: Monday, November 2, 2009 9:15 pm
KINGSLEY, Iowa -- Every year, Natalie Krohn feels her anxiety level rise as October drags. She finds pink everywhere promoting National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Pink ribbons. Pink caps on pill bottles. A magazine's pink headlines. A pink Sioux City Journal. T-shirts, bracelets. Football players sporting pink wristbands and shoes.
Dog food bags in pink. Floor mops, vacuum cleaners, diapers, frozen vegetables and hair products. All pretty in pink.
By Nov. 1, Krohn is feeling blue, seeing red.
The Kingsley resident is a wife, mother of three girls and a Girl Scout leader. She also has cancer. But not breast cancer, the disease that just completed its 25th promotion-heavy October.
"I don't want to sound bitter, but I probably do," says Krohn, who has had nine surgical procedures for leiomyosarcoma, a cancer that attacks smooth muscles. She's overcome tumors in her back, lungs and pelvis.
There are no celebrities who shine lights on her disease. Leiomyosarcoma is an Equal Opportunity Employer of sorts, not discriminating among victims. It accounts for 1 percent of all cancers in adults, 20 percent of all pediatric cancers. The three-year mortality rate is 75 percent.
It is serious, but has no special month, no special color. "Sarcoma has a purple ribbon, but it isn't our own," Krohn says. "We share it with pancreatic cancer."
Krohn laughs and shakes her head while we talk, noting she weighed the merits of "going public" like this. She doesn't want people to think she diminishes the pain and suffering breast cancer patients and their families endure.
She knows breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, trailing only lung cancer. Krohn is thrilled advancements have been made in breast cancer treatment, citing stats showing survivors have a better chance beating the disease than they did a decade or two ago.
This is likely due to research, awareness and educational campaigns. People are more conscious of lumps in the breast. They find them sooner, seek treatment quicker. Maybe that's where breast cancer fighters got it right, she concedes.
Krohn's lump was in her back. She discovered it a decade ago while riding a recumbent bike. The tumor was excised, tests showed it to be malignant. She enjoyed a cancer-free six-year stretch when she and husband Jeff, a family practice physician, had three daughters.
The cancer came back in February 2006 when Natalie sneezed so hard she broke a rib. Doctors found a tumor in the left upper lobe of her lung. She went through chemo again and was OK until May 2008 when cancer resurfaced in the lung. Five months later it was discovered in her pelvis. Five months ago it again arose in the pelvis, this time in two spots.
"We tried two rounds of chemo this summer, but it didn't shrink," Krohn says. "I had surgery on it Sept. 11."
Eight days later she joined Jeff and their daughters walking and riding (she rode in a wheelchair for part of the time) in Sioux City's "Race for Hope." The Krohns were part of a 40-member team that raised funds for the June E. Nylen Cancer Center.
Her most recent road to recovery has been rocked only by a pink barrage of good intentions over the past four weeks. Are people giving time, effort and funds to breast cancer causes at the expense of others? Krohn wonders.
She's working on the issue. She established a sarcoma support group on-line. She'd love to find others in Siouxland who feel her pain, literally.
"It's hard to verbalize because you don't want to disrespect people and what they've gone through with their cancer," she says. "But I guess with everything being pink last month, there was just something about it that prompted me to stand up."
Krohn wishes there were a more basic Cancer Awareness Month. Or, a Cancer Survivor Month.
The Choose Hope (www.choosehope.com) Web site groups cancer battles together. The organization's symbol features 26 cancer ribbons joined in a circle. Pink is one color, so is purple.
"I like that symbol," Krohn says as she leaves for an appointment with a doctor. "I want us to fight all cancers."