Playing for keeps: Pam Loiacono didn't let breast cancer define her

Courage isn't always loud. Sometimes courage is that little voice in your head that at the end of the day says I'll try again tomorrow and if I keep trying I'll be okay.

And, at the end of your fight against something like breast cancer you'll have the same beautiful smile and outlook on life that Pam Loiacono has.

She was playing for keeps, never let cancer define her and she won.

Pam, husband Sam and their family live in Pinckneyville. He's an industrial technology educator at Pinckneyville Community High School. Pam is a radiology department employee at Marshall Browning Hospital with a 25-year career in healthcare.

Early detection through a routine mammogram found her breast cancer. She rose above it. Along the way, she found that she had more friends than she ever imagined.

After two years, she will see her oncologist in December for the last time as she is handed her clean bill of health. Through it all she has never lost her place as a role model to other women. You need to know that places like Marshall Browning Hospital and Southern Illinois Healthcare and larger cancer centers here in the U.S. now have a 20 percent higher cancer cure rate than anywhere in the world.

Kimbra Schafer, Marshall Browning Imaging Director, remembers that day like it was yesterday. "We found the cancer here during a routine mammogram," something that the "50-something" Mrs. Loiacono routinely has done. It was her yearly screening

She followed up with an MRI, which is seldom used as the first diagnostic tool, explains Schafer, because of the cost.

After the original mammogram, an MRI and ultrasound can show the doctor more views of the affected area. For Mrs. Loiacono the breast cancer would not have shown up early in a personal exam as a telltale lump in the breast. It was a thickening of the tissue.

It was found early. It had not spread into the lymphatic system.

Marshall Browning's digital mammography unit is the same unit used by the Breast Center at SIH and major hospitals in St. Louis. The image is read by the same radiologist that reads the images for SIH.

Marshall Browning Hospital is as clinical as other centers, but not as institutional. The atmosphere is more intimate and the caring is profound.

This month alone the hospital will perform an average of 150 mammograms.

All of the members of the MBH radiology team are certified by the American College of Radiology.

The imaging was followed by a biopsy which confirmed the diagnosis. Mrs. Loiacono said there have been three other cases of breast cancer in her family, but it is not hereditary.

She went through three rounds of chemotherapy at the Breast Center at SIH, which recently opened a state-of-the art cancer center in Carterville. "It lasted three months, but I felt good the whole time," she remembers. She never had stretches of missing work. She left Marshall Browning only long enough to make her appointments. In fact, working was great therapy. It kept her focused on life.

Helping others helped her. Like that great kindergarten teacher you saw on your first day of school, Mrs. Loiacono or someone like her is the first person you want to see in radiology.

How fast would Mrs. Loiacono's cancer have advanced without the mammogram. Schafer said some cancers are very aggressive where even a month will make a difference in treatment. Others are slower.

She said most insurance companies now have wellness coverages that pay for mammograms

Early detection eliminates the chance for cancer to define you. Cancer becomes the victim.