Survivor Vicki Lockhart makes most out of life
Vicki Lockhart
From ziplining to parasailing, Vicki Lockhart looks forward to adventures.
"Ziplining was wonderful," she said as she recalled when she ventured over the Icy strait of Alaska. "It was fun," she said.
Going out and beyond is part of Lockhart's personality now, but it hasn't always. "Now I kind of breath and take risks and enjoy," she said.
Lockhart is a two-time breast cancer survivor.
In the latter part of 1984, Lockhart, then a 30-year-old wife and mom of a little boy about to turn 4, was getting ready to celebrate the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays when she discovered a lump in her breast. Not wanting to dampen the holiday spirit, Lockhart put off going to the doctor. "And then I finally went."
Because she was young, her physician thought it was a cyst, but after x-rays and a mammogram, the decision was made to remove the lump and biopsy it. "In my mind," Lockhart said, "I knew it was cancer." And it was.
After the confirmation, Lockhart opted to undergo a mastectomy. Still, she insisted that it be scheduled around her son's school program, so the doctor gave her a pass to leave the hospital and return. After her seven-week hospital stay and six-week recovery, she began an aggressive chemotherapy regimen, resulting in losing her hair.
"That will hit you quickly when you've had long hair, and it's gone. But I had people who came in where I worked, never knew I had a wig, and never could tell anything. I did just fine with that," she said.
Her chemo treatment was scheduled for six months, but her blood levels would vary too much. "It ended up right at a year because my blood wouldn't be right," she said.
"It was a long year," she said.
In 1996, different cancer appeared in her other breast. "And everything was different," Lockhart said, explaining the hospital stay was two days, and she was permitted to return to work. After meeting her oncologist, he told her his approach to this cancer wouldn't be as aggressive as before, but treatment needed to start immediately. "I told him I wasn't ready. He said, 'what are you waiting on? What's going to change tomorrow?'” So, she had her first treatment that day.
"It wasn't as strong; my hair didn't fall out – it got really thin. I had a good hairdresser, and she just styled it so that you never knew I was losing hair and it was getting thin," Lockhart said.
Lockhart would face another cancer – uterine – in 2008 that would be cleared after a dilation and curettage procedure and a hysterectomy; she didn’t have to under go other treatments for it.
"It’s quite a journey," she said.
When she encountered breast cancer for the first time, Lockhart had to sort things out, especially when it came to how her son would grow up. "I had to get in my mind my mother would help my husband with our son, and if I didn't live, he would be okay. You have to work all that out to get some peace, and I did," she said.
Today, her son Ben and his wife Amanda have two daughters, June, 11, and Lucy, 8.
Lockhart continues to see her oncologist every nine months, and like most cancer survivors, she gets a little apprehensive before appointments.
Her advice to others is: Perform self-checks and visit your doctor regularly. "Anybody can get cancer. And don't think you won't be the one who doesn't," she said.
"It could be me again tomorrow. It doesn't matter if you've had it once. You're not over, you not done,” she added.
"I was just lucky. I had a good support system at home and work and great doctors," she said.
Lockhart added, "I'm healthy now. It was not a death sentence for me. I wasn't sure in the beginning if it would be or not. It wasn't. I've lived a happy life, no regrets."