CLEVELAND — Appreciating the little things in life is what has kept Northeast Ohio breast cancer patient Corky Thacker going.
"Having a positive attitude, and looking forward to activities, enjoying life each day is important," Thacker said.
It's also an important part of her treatment plan after receiving a rare stage four inflammatory breast cancer diagnosis.
"There was definitely a shock because nobody in my family that I know of had, had breast cancer,” Thacker said.
She says the Cleveland Clinic wasted little time organizing a plan of action for her.
"Chemotherapy in advance of surgery, which surgery would have been a radical mastectomy because the cancer was all through the breast," she said.
After the fifth of a scheduled six rounds of chemotherapy, she had a highly toxic reaction to the drug.
"I swelled up from the waist down like the Michelin man," she said. "It was really painful and gruesome, and it's like, ‘Ok, we can't use that drug anymore on you.’”
After more experimentation with other medications, the side effects only worsened.
"It was so bad that the people that saw me regularly were all very worried about me," Thacker said. "I was looking sick. I was feeling sick. These [drugs] were designed to be taken for the rest of your life, right? And allegedly, 'Oh, you can get an extra two years, and I said, I don't wanna live like this an extra two days. This isn't living."
After some frank discussions with her doctors, she explained that quality of life was the most important thing to her.
"The type of therapy we did with Corky is called 'Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy,'" said Dr. Kathleen Ashton, a Health Psychologist at Cleveland Clinic and a doctor on Thacker's care team. "It really focuses on enhancing meaning in patients lives while they deal with a life-threatening disease like Inflammatory Breast Cancer."
Viewing her cancer as managing a chronic condition is something Thacker embraces, trying to get fulfillment with the time she has rather than suffering through the hope of added time.
"[My husband and I] are trying to enjoy today and yes, we do forward looking things and continue booking cruises well, in advance, finishing the novel that I'd started in 2018 is something I'd wanted to do all my life."
Thacker is now working on the sequel to her book, which she self-published based on the advice of Dr. Ashton.
She said she wants other patients to know they can be advocates for themselves and that there are different types of treatments that can help each patient's individual case.