October 15 , 2020 The Beacon • 25
Battling together : A breast cancer survivor story
By Tara Gracyk
She had experienced a lot of transitions in just a few short years , like a divorce , being a single mother and a change in employer . She and her family also had just had two family members die about a year apart from one another , and both had died from different forms of cancer . And then in 2015 , she found herself home alone , her daughter away on a trip and her parents visiting family out of state when she received the call that began the biggest fight of her life .
At 38 years old , Tiffany Dalzell Mahon heard the word every person dreads hearing , “ cancer .”
“ According to the medical guidelines , I wasn ’ t even old enough to start having mammograms done , but there it was , a bump on my breast . It had been there for a while , and it wasn ’ t getting any smaller . Actually , it felt like it was getting slightly bigger , and it felt hard ,” Mahon said .
Mahon said she had gone to see her general physician , and he referred her to another doctor who then sent her to have the mass biopsied .
“ All I could hear him say was the ‘ C ’ word ,” Mahon said as she recalled the day she received the call from the doctor . “ Once he said that word , I don ’ t remember if he said anything else after that .”
Mahon ’ s mother , Cindy Dalzell , said , “ We were in California when Tiffany
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This picture was taken on Oct . 3 , 2020 , of Tiffany Dalzell Mahon and her daughter .
received her diagnosis . We were ready to fly home , but she said ‘ no ’ because there wasn ’ t anything we could do until she went in for her consultation with the oncologist . She cried , and we felt helpless because we were so far away .”
Dalzell said the family was in a state of shock , confusion and loss because her husband Bob ’ s sister , Sue , had just died three months earlier . Sue had survived breast cancer twice before she died from pancreatic cancer in 2015 , the same year Mahon was diagnosed with breast cancer herself . In addition , Dalzell said her own mother died in 2014 of mesothelioma , and the family was still healing and grieving those losses .
About a week after Mahon was diagnosed with breast cancer , she was tested for a harmful BRCA mutation , a genetic mutation that is inherited from a person ’ s mother or father . If a parent is a carrier of one of these
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“ A positive BRCA2 is fatal if it ’ s not caught in time . It is aggressive in nature , it affects many organs and it does not discriminate in gender , race or age ,” Mahon said as she revealed she tested positive for the BRCA2 mutation . “ Please , if you have a history of breast cancer in your family , talk with your doctor about having a genetic test done to rule you out of the chance of having any of the BRCA genes .”
Mahon ’ s father , Bob Dalzell , is a carrier of BRCA and has lost his mother , father , sister and four of his uncles to cancer because of this gene mutation . Bob Dalzell ’ s brother and one of his aunts have thankfully survived it , but he has often apologized to Mahon for her having gotten cancer , feeling as if he were to blame .
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This is a picture of Tiffany Dalzell Mahon and Maddy Mahon , her daughter , during one of Tiffany ’ s chemotherapy treatments .
“ Even though it is just a freak mutation , when you pass something on to your child , you can ’ t help but feel somehow responsible ,” Cindy Dalzell said .
After finding out she tested positive for the BRCA2 mutation , Mahon said she had two choices and one decision to make . She could either have a single mastectomy , where only one of her breasts would be removed and then she would risk the chance of getting breast cancer in her other breast later , or she could have a double mastectomy and have both of her breasts removed .
Despite knowing a double mastectomy would mean having the next year of life planned out by a list of doctors , nurses and family members and being sick and having so much joint pain she wouldn ’ t be able to walk at times , as Mahon put it , she chose to go ahead and have the bilateral mastectomy . She said , “ It wasn ’ t
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about me . I had a 13-yearold daughter who needed her mom , and I wanted to show her how strong we could be .”
From that moment on , Mahon went from surgeries to treatments to surgeries again . She had the bilateral mastectomy , endured 14 rounds of chemotherapy including the one known as the “ Red Devil ” because of its potency , 44 rounds of radiation and an oophorectomy . To clarify , the oophorectomy , the removal of her ovaries procedure , was a preventative measure because it is an organ the BRCA2 mutation tends to go after .
In addition to the treatments , Mahon also had to recover from two failed reconstructive surgeries due to a lack of elasticity and dead skin cells caused by the radiation treatment . Her body rejected the expanders for the breast implants , and both times she had to be hospitalized and put
Fighting the Fight ...
on heavy IV antibiotics to help her body heal from the failed procedures . Because of all of that , she is now unable to have any more reconstructive surgery .
“ There were times I had to use a walker or a wheelchair , times I couldn ’ t get out of bed . I would cry in the shower because the water would hurt while it ran down my skin . I couldn ’ t eat because everything tasted like metal , and I had sores in my mouth ,” Mahon said as she described some of what she experienced during treatment .
Cindy Dalzell said , “ The hardest part was watching Tiffany get sicker and sicker from the treatments . She lost her hair , her skin turned grey and her eyes had that sunken look . No parent wants their child to be sick , but this was the sickest of sick .”
“ My mom has told me recently that she had never been more scared in her life than when I was going through all of that because of the way I looked during that time . I was her child , and now to imagine what I must have looked like to my daughter ,” Mahon said .
Tiffany ’ s daughter , Maddy Mahon , who was only 13 at the time her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer , recalled feeling scared and worried . Due to losing two family members she was close to , she said , “ I was scared that I was going to lose my mom too , and I wasn ’ t ready to
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