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Linda Blow O’Connor ‘64, a Burlington native who now lives in Cicero, New York, has survived two bouts with cancer. She was 45 in 1987 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She’d had fibrocystic disease and was unfazed by fine needle aspirations (an attempt to drain the suspect tissue). Linda says, “I knew this one was a little different,” and a biopsy confirmed she would need a mastectomy. Linda’s daughter and son were 18 and 13 at the time, and her illness “scared them to death,” she says. She shared their fears. “I went under (the surgery) very apprehensive. Somehow my luck had run out. It hadn’t, but it had just taken a different turn.” Linda recovered well and returned to her work as a nursery school teacher.

Then, almost thirty months later, she had worrisome symptoms — intestinal cramping and bleeding. “It didn’t occur to me that it was colon cancer,” she says. It was, and Linda had surgery to remove part of her colon. One lymph node tested positive for cancer, so she underwent thirteen months of weekly chemotherapy. “I had very few problems with it,” she says. She didn’t lose her hair, and she “gained weight and never missed a meal.” But meals have changed, she says. No more red meat and fried foods. “We follow a good diet now.”

Experiences of Alumnae