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Trusting in What You Know
Looking for reassurance as she began her treatment for breast cancer,
this Brick woman had only to turn to her own husband’s previous experience
with the top-notch Radiation Oncology team at Ocean Medical Center.
If there was a silver lining for Marie
Van Haeren among the storm clouds
of discovering she had breast cancer,
it was the recollection of her husband
Bob’s own successful cancer treatment
a few years earlier. Back then, the
couple was initially disheartened by
medical experts in New York who
told Bob that his only chance at
beating his rectal cancer was major
surgery — an irreversible colostomy —
because he’d already received radiation
therapy 20 years ago for an unrelated
health issue.
Dissatisfied with being given only
one option, the Van Haerens wisely
sought a second opinion closer to
home, and that’s when they had the
good fortune of meeting Nathan
Kaufman, M.D., director of Radiation
Oncology for Meridian Health and
chair of Radiation Oncology at Ocean
Medical Center. Just as they had hoped,
Bob successfully completed six weeks
of radiation therapy at Ocean, with
Dr. Kaufman expertly overseeing
his treatment. He was cured of his
cancer, without surgery and without
a colostomy.
Relying on Experience
Two years later, it was Marie’s turn to
be caught off guard by some bad news,
and although she was both surprised
and scared about her diagnosed breast
cancer, she wasn’t going to be caught
unprepared. Instead, using her
experience of Bob’s recovery to
navigate her own medical journey,
Marie, too, decided to put her faith
in God and in the team at Ocean
Medical Center — a team that had
pulled the Van Haeren family
through a difficult time before.
Marie recounts the succession of
events: "When three 'grains of salt'
showed up on the films following my
yearly mammogram, I was advised to
have a biopsy done." Marie knew to
immediately call her gynecologist,
Josephine Filardo, M.D., a board-certified
OB/GYN on staff at Ocean Medical
Center, which led to her scheduled
biopsy performed by board-certified
surgeon Bassam T. Kashlan, M.D.
Marie was diagnosed with Stage I
invasive breast cancer, which means
that the cancer had not spread beyond
the breast. Still, as accustomed as she’d
grown to her role as caregiver and
spirit-lifter during her husband’s cancer
treatment, Marie found that accepting
her own diagnosis was a different
matter altogether. But she regrouped
as quickly as she could, attributing her
strength and resolve during this period to her faith, her husband’s successful
outcome, and her confidence in the
medical staff at Ocean Medical Center,
which quickly set a course of action
in motion.
Early detection of Marie’s breast cancer
paid off. The tumor, still small, was
successfully removed by Dr. Kashlan,
along with some surrounding tissue,
during a procedure called a lumpectomy.
As is standard following this surgery,
radiation therapy was then begun to
destroy any cancer cells that may
have remained. For seven weeks after
her surgery, Marie completed daily
weekday treatments under the watchful
and now-familiar eye of Dr. Kaufman.
"I know it might sound funny to people
who haven’t gone through it, but once
I was through with those treatments,
I missed Dr. Kaufman and the entire
team that cared for me there," Marie says.
Life After Cancer
Now cancer-free and full of life, the
Van Haerens share their story with
as many people as they can. "We
want people to know about the
excellent care that we received by
the doctors as well as the other health
care professionals we met during
our illnesses."
The two are pleased to be spending
less time in physician offices —
"except for our checkups, which are
so important," Marie acknowledges —
and more time doing the things they
truly enjoy, like spending time with
their 11 grandchildren and traveling.
"We just recently returned from a
cruise to the Caribbean, and we’re
already planning another sailing trip."
 – Anne Marie Keevins
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