Karen Schlosser: Support during cancer invaluable

Family.

The members can be irritating. They can be exhilirating. And they can also be sublimely loving and understanding.

For Karen Schlosser of Scott City, the latter attributes are what come to mind as she prepares to cook the traditional Thanksgiving meal for her husband Rick, her daughter Rachel Lawson, her sons Derrick and Cory, her 85-year-old mother and three of her six sisters.

One of those sisters, Sandy Ressel, nominated Schlosser to be Scott City's Woman of the Year this year.

At the end of December 2000, Schlosser discovered a lump her breast that was diagnosed as cancer in January 2001. Surgery, a single mastectomy, followed, along with chemotherapy. At the time, Schlosser, a banker with Regions Bank in Scott City, was working in Cape Girardeau. Her sister, Anita Hartle -- a registered nurse -- broke the news.

"You are in shock," she said. "You know this happens, it happens every day. But it was happenging to me."

The help of family, and doctors in St. Louis and Cape Girardeau, allowed her to face the illness and the treatments. "I had all my family, my in-laws and immediate family, who were such a wonderful support and they got me through."

Following the surgery, the chemotherapy began. Husband Rick, and sister Phyllis Duschell and her husband Brian, accompanied Schlosser to St. Louis for the treatment. Although she was warned of the side effects, Schlosser feels fortunate that it never made her sick to her stomach. But she did lose her hair.

"I was actually off work, taking a shower one mid-afternoon, and as I was showering strands of hair started getting in my fingers," she said. "It really was creepy. I could grab my hair and pull it out in clumps."

To avoid the continued hair loss, Schlosser, daughter Rachel and neice Tamara Dannenmueller had a head shaving party.

And on her birthday that August, with a crowd of people around, Rick flipped off his hat, showing he had shaved his head as well.

During the worst days of the illness, Schlosser said, Rachel fluffed her pillows, making them comfortable becaue Schlosser could barely move. "My pillows had to be just a certain way and we would cry and laugh about it."

And as she serves the meal Thursday, Schlosser said she will be thankful for her family, her "awesome" coworkers, her doctors -- Paul Clarke of Cape Girardeau, Gerard Dougherty and Keith Brandt of St. Louis -- and one more: "I want to say, for me and my family, we are thankful for a loving and merciful God."

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611 extension 126