By Loretta Gillespie The Cullman Times

CULLMAN — As with most young couples, Michael and Marilyn Breeden looked forward to an exciting life together. They planned many things — buying a house, filling it with furniture, traveling and starting a family.

They married in 2006, moving from Marilyn’s home in Addison to Shoreline, Washington, where Michael’s job had taken them.

Marilyn missed her family here but was ready to embark on this new adventure with Michael, eager to begin their lives together. They enjoyed the climate of Washington and their new home.

They both had good jobs. Marilyn worked as an administrative assistant at a private non-profit quality health care improvement organization, and Michael was in direct sales and installations for a communications company.

Still planning for their future together, they began to think about starting a family.

In 2007, when Marilyn suspected she might be pregnant, they went together to the OB/GYN. Sure enough, they were about three months along.

During the exam, Marilyn mentioned to the nurse practitioner that there was a noticeable lump in her right breast.

“It was about the diameter of a quarter,” remembered Michael. “Hard, and tender to the touch.”

An ultrasound was performed later that same day, then a mammogram, then a biopsy.

In all the plans the couple had made, cancer was not on the list.



‘Too Young’

“I was just 36 and thought I was too young for this to be happening to me,” said Marilyn. “I’d had a benign cyst several years before, and I thought it might be that again.

“Finding out you’re having a baby, then looking into the eyes of a doctor who just knew, even though she wouldn’t say it, that your life was about to change in more ways than just a diaper-changing kind of way, was tough,” said Michael.

In a few days their worst fears were confirmed. Marilyn had breast cancer.

“Marilyn isn’t one to show a lot of emotion when she’s sad,” Michael said. “But no matter how hard she tried to avoid me, her tears couldn’t be hidden. 

“I held her for a long time that day and for many days afterward. I cancelled appointments and rescheduled jobs so that we could see one doctor after another, each one telling us a little bit of what we could expect in the near future.

“When we met a week later with the OB/GYN doctor, she greeted us with a somber smile, offering congratulations on the pregnancy and sympathy for the cancer.”

The doctor pulled up a screen showing the tiny life growing inside Marilyn’s womb, its little feet already kicking.

 “She asked us if we were prepared for what might happen if we decided to treat the cancer now, or if we waited until after the baby was born.”

There was a strong possibility that the baby would have to be aborted in order to save Marilyn’s life.

“At that moment, I could see tears welling in her eyes,” said Michael. “It was as if I could hear what she was thinking.”

“She had 17 nieces and nephews, and now her desire to have one of her own was potentially being taken from her.”

She walked around in a daze for much of the following week. On Sunday they met with the bishop of their church, along with a fellow parishioner who was a well-known oncologist.

“He confirmed that the pregnancy could put Marilyn’s treatment at risk, but tried to assure us that he thought it wouldn’t be necessary to abort the pregnancy.”

After much mental anguish, and debate, they made the decision to surgically extract the cancer before treatment, giving the baby a better chance.

“I had five treatments after the surgery,” recalled Marilyn, “which was one more than they usually do, and I was frightened for the baby, who was now on chemo, too.”

Her hair began to come out as the tiny life inside her continued to grow.

“But, I really wasn’t as sick as I have heard some people are. I never missed any work,” said Marilyn.

“At times I wanted to curl up and die,” she said. “But I could feel the prayers that others were offering for me, and it gave me confidence.”



New Baby, New Treatment

On April 23, 2008, Micah Raine Breeden was born, healthy and intact, a beautiful baby girl.

Marilyn had been through surgery, five chemo treatments, and childbirth.

Now she was about to start more a aggressive chemo and knew her hair was going to come out.

“She didn’t want to see it in the shower, or covering her pillow in the mornings, so she asked me to cut it for her,” remembered Michael.

By October of 2008, Marilyn — weakened from the treatments — was struggling to care for a lively toddler.

They made the difficult decision to move back to Alabama, to be near her family for emotional support and help with the baby, who was growing increasingly harder for Marilyn to lift.

The move proved to be both a blessing and a curse. Although they managed to keep up their COBRA payments — which allowed them to keep their health insurance coverage — neither of them had been able to find a job, and the economy had hit hard times, as well.

The love and support of family, friends, and the community helped bring her help, and for a time, they breathed a little easier.

Then, in July of this year, Michael insisted that Marilyn see a doctor about the persistent pain she was having in her chest.

“Initially, we were told that it was residual pain, caused by the radiation,” said Michael. “But our local oncologist ordered several tests that confirmed our worst fears. The cancer had returned.”



‘Begin to Rethink’

“It’s hard to understand when you’re healthy,” said Marilyn. “You live your life day by day, and sometimes play hard to prove that you are immortal.

“But, when someone says to you, ‘You will die from this in a very short amount of time,’ you begin to rethink that.”

For the second time, Marilyn Breeden is staring into the face of cancer.

“The first time she was angry and afraid,” said Michael. “Now she is even more angry, and very afraid.”

“My worst fear is not being able to help her get ready for her (Micah’s) first prom, or watch her walk across the stage to get her diploma, or down the aisle as a beautiful bride,” said Marilyn, looking at Micah through the window of the oncology center.

“And that is also my greatest hope,” she added, with tears in her eyes for the first time.

Marilyn is now on the same treatment regime that would normally be used on a patient with lung cancer.

“We can tell when someone walks through the door if they are a fighter,” said Donna Humphreys, one of the registered nurses at the Cullman Oncology Center. “And Marilyn is certainly one of the fighters. She is very determined and has a positive attitude, which means everything to a cancer patient.”

“If a person feels sorry for themselves, if they let depression get the best of them, they will do poorly. Everyone has moments or days when they are down, but if they can beat that, they do well.”



Insurance Frustration

After visiting a radiology oncologist who said the word “inoperable” for the first time, followed by a Birmingham surgeon who confirmed that it would be highly dangerous and ultimately reduce her quality of life should they attempt to remove the mass surgically, the specialists all recommended that Marilyn have a new therapy called CyberKnife, or gamma-knife radiation.

This type of therapy delivers extremely high doses of radiation, with 200 lasers pointing directly into the cancerous mass, killing it, as opposed to more of the radiation which she has already had, unsuccessfully.

“They explained to us that if they continued with the radiation they had used before, it would probably rot away her skin, and if they do surgery, they will have to literally tear away her sternum, because the tumor has wrapped itself around it,” said Michael.

 “In order for them to go in and remove it, they will have to tear away her chest wall, then they will have to rebuild it. She will be in pain from it for the rest of her life.”

“When they do that kind of surgery, they have to replace that muscle with one from the shoulder. Afterwards there can be all sorts of complications from infections, to painful tightness of the muscle,” explained Humphreys. “Because of where the muscle is re-located, it can cause the inability of doctors to have access inside the chest wall in the event of a heart attack.”

“The cyber-therapy is like a robotic arm. They use it for getting into places that are impossible to reach in a conventional surgery,” Michael said.

Now, with this as their best option and their money running out, the Breedens face a seemingly insurmountable wall. They are paying $700 a month in COBRA payments to an insurance company that initially denied their request for the CyberKnife surgery.

“They deemed it ‘experimental and investigational,’” said Marilyn, whose job was once as a claims reviewer, doing appeals and quality reviews.

Although the CyberKnife treatments have been performed on humans for several years, and are now being used to treat prostate cancer, the Breedens’ insurance company, Blue Cross/ Blue Shield of Washington, initially would not approve the treatment. Only recently did the company approve the CyberKnife therapy, after months of appeals and frustration for the Breedens, but it is still not clear what portion of the cost their insurance will cover.



Raising Funds

In an effort to save her life, her family, friends and neighbors here have gathered together to help in the fight, placing donation jars in every available spot.

Chick-Fil-A recently offered their support by matching donations when customers mentioned Marilyn’s name.

“I would love to be able to go and personally thank everyone who has been so good to us,” said Marilyn’s mother, Betty Robinson, who has covered their community with donation jars and fliers. “Like other mothers, I would walk through fire to save her, if I could. It just aches my heart to see this happening to her.”

“I’m so grateful. It’s overwhelming, and somewhat embarrassing to have to ask for help,” said Marilyn. “We have always made it on our own, and never dreamed that we would be in this situation.”

“Our story is not over,” said Michael. “I love her, and I don’t want to lose her, so we continue to do what we can, praying that this new regime of chemo-therapy will kill what the last one couldn’t.

“And I mean the cancer, not my wife,” he said.