Judy Eason-McIntyre

By John Greiner, Staff Writer

Published: April 28, 2008

Sen. Judy Eason McIntyre went for a routine mammogram in 2006 and left stunned and wrecked emotionally.

“It had always been a practice of mine to look at the film, even though I wasn’t quite sure what it meant,” she said.

“I had a nurse friend who told me if I saw — I’m trying to think it was either a dark patch or a light patch, I can’t remember what it was — but when I looked at the film before they took it away to the radiologists, I saw something there, and I knew I had cancer.”

She was so stunned that she doesn’t remember how she got home that day, Eason McIntyre said.

Three days later, she received a routine letter telling her there was an abnormality on the mammogram of her breasts and she should report to her primary physician, she said.

She did nothing.

“I waited two weeks. I kept it to myself about two weeks. I put on a smiley face but was thinking all kinds of negative thoughts that I was going to die, it had gone all through my body.

“I was scared, angry and not hopeful at that time,” she said “I waited two weeks exactly. I did not tell my mother, I told no one.”

Finally, she called her best friend and told her what happened.

“And I told her about the funeral plans I had made, and she listened, and when I finished, she called me a bad name, and she later told me it was to get my attention,” Eason McIntyre, a Tulsa Democrat, said.

That was the turning point for her, and she went to the doctor.

She began to tell everybody she had cancer. She was surprised to find so many women who had had breast cancer, she said.

After the biopsy, she got the results from her physician.

“The first question I asked, despite all the faith I had, was, ‘Am I going to die?’ ” she said.

A lumpectomy showed a cancer that she never would have found through self examination, she said.

Had she not taken the mammogram, the cancer might have progressed to a critical stage if she had waited until she could feel a lump, Eason McIntyre said.

She got a second opinion and was told she might have cancer in the other breast too. “I chose to have both removed at the same time and not have reconstructive surgery ... ,” she said.

It was tempting to have reconstructive surgery because they take fat you gather around your midsection, she said.

“If I would have had a tummy tuck, I could have looked like Dolly Parton probably,” she laughed, adding quickly, “but I thought, ‘no, I don’t want to have that done.’ ”

Words of Wisdom: “Despite the fear of knowing, it is a slow, painful death to do nothing,” she said. “Once you get over the shock of it all, then you need to readjust your attitude because the thing about is, if you don’t have a positive outlook and you don’t surround yourself with positive people, it’s a miserable journey.” Eason McIntyre said helping others has helped her.

“I figured God left me here to kind of be a mouthpiece for young women, older women, all women whatever color they may be, because if you’re diagnosed early enough, you have a higher possibility of living,” she said.

Also, “Take a friend with you every step of the way because you hear and you don’t hear. When I got out of there (doctor’s office), I was like ‘what did she say?’ because I’m still thinking one foot being positive and the other in the graveyard.”

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