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When Jane Kenney first learned she had cancer, she was convinced that she had to die. Because of her medical knowledge and her experiences as a nurse, she perceived her diagnosis as a death sentence. Since those difficult days well over ten years ago, she has grown a great deal. Cancer, for Jane and her family, has become both a challenge and an opportunity. As a direct result of her illness and her many treatments, she is a stronger, more spiritual person. Her intelligence and her sensitive, loving nature make her a skilled cancer educator. Most especially, Jane feels a sense of mission when she is invited to speak with senior nursing students. Hers is the unique perspective of a cancer survivor who also happens to be a nurse. She knows from first hand experience that cancer is a chronic disease which effects not only the patient, but also the patient's extended family. And as a mother, she has always been sensitive to its long term effects on the lives of children.Jane's story began in November of 1986 when she discovered a lump. For several months prior to her discovery she hadn't been feeling right. She knew she was unnaturally tired when she was jogging with friends and began to notice that she didn't have her usual endurance or stamina. Then, one day while she was idly scratching herself, she felt the lump. "Although I'm a nurse," she says, "I wasn't doing any type of self exam; but I immediately knew it wasn't good.... The lump was on my left side, near my breast and sort of under my arm. Because of the location I couldn't tell specifically what it was connected to. All I knew was that it was something I couldn't ignore."
At the time, Jane was living in Germany with her three children, and her husband Jim, who was working for the federal government. Although she immediately went to see a German doctor, her comfort level dictated that she return to the States for her biopsy and tests. So while Jim and her two boys, Shawn and Jamie, stayed in Europe; Jane and her thirteen year old daughter Beth flew home to Boston. After several traumatic days, her pathology reports came back non-hodgkins lymphoma and her entire family's world turned upside down.
In January of 1987, Jane began the staging process that would lead to her bone marrow transplant over three years later. Fortunately, because her lymphoma was very slow growing, she found herself in the "just wait" situation which is very common for this form of cancer. "The immediate course of treatment," Jane explains, "was no treatment at all."
During this phase, it was Jane's husband who was doing the medical research. Jim would put all kinds of information on lymphoma in front of his wife, but she'd refuse to even look at it. She was in total denial about her diagnosis until a friend who was going through chemotherapy for breast cancer confronted her. Jane recalls the question Peggy posed to her as if it were yesterday. "How are you going to win this game you've been forced into playing with cancer unless you get your act together and face this?", her friend asked.
"With my cancer diagnosis," Jane wisely observes, "I'd fallen apart physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I'd thrown my hands up in the air. It was Peggy who forced me to see the light. She challenged me to educate myself, to be in control. 'Don't let the disease be in control of you!', she warned.... I'll never forget her, or her advice, because she helped give me back myself....
Jane and her family learned another important lesson when they sold their house in Reading and moved to Townsend where they live today. At first, nobody in their small community knew about her disease. "We decided that we wouldn't tell anyone I had cancer," she says. She shakes her head in disbelief as she remembers yet another challenging period in her life. "I applied for a part time job in the local school sytem and didn't tell them. And we never mentioned anything to our new neighbors. We truly believed we could pretend and nobody would find us out."
This course of action lasted about five or six months until one day when Jane was standing in the kitchen talking to her husband. She recalls her moment of epiphany quite vividly. "'This is wrong, Jim,' I remember saying, 'This is definitely wrong! Cancer is our life right now. It's a part of our life and we're denying it. If people can't accept us as the Kenneys, and by the way, Jane has cancer; then that's their problem. I can't keep hiding this any more!'...A direct result of this cover-up was that I was placing myself and my family under a tremendous amount of stress. We were living a lie. I couldn't be who I was. I was now Jane with cancer and this elaborate facade was probably just another way of denying the truth and the reality of my situation."
So, ever since that day in her kitchen all those years ago, Jane and her family have been boldly out of the closet as far as her cancer is concerned. "It was a moment of real growth for me," Jane says thoughtfully. "It made me realize the truth of my situation which is still my truth today. I am Jane Kenney and I have cancer. No matter whether the cancer is active or inactive, it's part of my life forever. I have to face that!"
Today, Jane speaks proudly of the t-shirts her family wore as she was going into transplant. They were imprinted with the words "NO GUTS, NO GLORY" which has long since become the Kenney family motto. Since her transplant on May 25 of 1990, she and her family have been through some very rough times. She's had to cope with many physical and emotional difficulties which have included a vicious case of shingles, a relapse, and attending her daughter Beth's high school graduation on a morphine drip. "But," Jane says with her characteristically gentle smile, "I was there to see my daughter deliver her speech as the President of her graduating class. I was there!" ....And these days, without any traditional therapy, she has had a spontaneous remission and is in excellent health. Jane is a firm believer in the mind-body connection, and in the use of complimentary therapies such as Chinese medicine, herbs, vitamins, prayer, psychotherapy, Reiki healing (she is studying to become an instructor); and of course, Stepping Stones. Jane and Jim were both at the group's first meeting seven October's ago. Additionally, she and her family continue to receive excellent care and support from her transplant physician, Dr. Arnie Freedman.... This past Spring, Jane could be seen dancing with her son Jamie at his wedding. As Jim Kenney takes pleasure in noting, "At that incredible sight, there wasn't a dry eye in the house!"....Above all else, Jane would like to make a difference in the attitudes of health care professionals and managed care toward cancer patients, and in the attitudes of cancer patients toward themselves. Telling her courageous story is one way she hope to accomplish this. In Jane's view, there is indeed a full life after transplant!
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