Mother’s Day: Family, friends rally around Jan Stoffer in sickness and in health

CEDAR RAPIDS - Today is extra special in the rambunctious Stoffer household, because mom, Jan, 43, is here to celebrate with husband, Mark Stoffer Hunter, 48, and their children, twins Paul and Carolyn, 6, and Luke, 4 1/2. Halves count when you're counting your blessings.

In the course of a year, Stoffer went from having medium-length wavy brown hair to short, purple, spiky hair to no hair, topped by a wardrobe of fabulous hats and scarves. Now, bouncy brown curls frame her face and her sparkling eyes.

The sparkle never went out of her soul, sustained by humor and a village of supporters as she faced chemo, radiation, a right-breast mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.

She says it's not really accurate to say she's cancer free, since she never had cancer.

'I never owned it. I say I had a diagnosis - I don't say I had cancer, because I never had it. It may have had me for a little bit, but I never had it,” she declares.

'Now I'm fine.”

Her sparkle shines through tears when her husband says, 'We're very grateful for a happy Mother's Day this year. Those kids are awfully cute.”

'They're awesome,” she says.

'They are pretty awesome,” he says.

'We do emphasize the value of the village that we had to help us since this whole thing began,” he adds.

'All these people who let me be a mom today,” she says, overwhelmed by the thoughts she never dared entertain during her positive year of fighting an aggressive triple negative breast cancer.

'Without them I would not be a mom today. My kids would not have a mom if it hadn't been for all these people. Oh my God, what a tragedy that would have been.”

THE VILLAGE

She calls her caretaking trio her Titty Committee - Kristen Lindenlaub and Sara Volesky of Cedar Rapids and Tammy Smith of Swisher - and the others her Cleavage Crusaders - 100 friends, family and co-workers who received regular updates on her condition from the committee. They all helped in one way or another, shuttling her to medical appointments or keeping her family fed, her house clean and her kids cared-for so she could heal and work as much as possible.

She worried about being sick in the public eye.

Stoffer, education director at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, and Stoffer Hunter, research historian and tour guide at The Carl & Mary Koehler History Center, are recognized wherever they go in Cedar Rapids.

'You're looking beautiful Jan,” says a lady who stops by our table during a recent lunchtime interview. 'And you're very handsome,” she says, giving Stoffer Hunter a quick squeeze.

The couple, who married in September 2006, have learned to embrace that recognition.

'No one can chart this alone,” Stoffer Hunter says.

They tried to keep their budding relationship out of the public eye by dating in Iowa City. Stoffer knew trying to keep her illness private would be impossible once her hair started falling out, but she quickly realized she had to let people help so she could meet her goal of wrapping up treatments in just one year. That dogged determination was half the battle.

They had cleared mounting obstacles since 2006, when The History Center closed for a while and Stoffer Hunter lost his full-time job and started taking part-time and freelance assignments. The Floods of 2008 displaced the Czech & Slovak Museum, entailing several moves, and as a couple, they faced difficulties conceiving the twins.

'We just couldn't catch a break,” says Stoffer Hunter, who cut back on his part-time gigs to help more at home. He returned to full-time work at The History Center in January.

'We did choose to be positive from day one,” he says of his wife's health challenge. 'We thought, ‘OK, fine, this has happened, we're going to tackle it head-on. The goal was, the sooner we get it over with, the better.'

'We thought, ‘What's the shortest window for a positive outcome we can work with here?' And we never doubted that we would have a positive outcome,” he says.

'We couldn't fail. That was no option,” Stoffer says. 'There was too much at stake. I have waited too long to have kids, and I wasn't gonna only be around for just a few short years of their life.”

TIMELINE

That yearlong timeline is seared in her brain.

'Dec. 18, 2012: She was 42 when she found the first lump after taking off her bra in the evening and realizing something just felt odd. Her mother is in maintenance mode after facing an unrelated type of breast cancer one year earlier. 'We don't have the gene” for the hereditary breast cancer, Stoffer says, but nevertheless, she has been vigilant about self-checking and already had a routine mammogram slated for Dec. 20.

'Dec. 19, 2012: She felt a second lump in her right breast.

'Dec. 20, 2012: Her mammogram images were deemed 'suspicious.”

'Dec. 26, 2012: She met with radiology to discuss the mammogram; a week later, she had a biopsy. 'The holidays were kinda rough,” she says.

'Jan. 4, 2013: She received the diagnosis on a Friday and called her mother's oncologist, Dr. Chirantan Ghosh. The Cleavage Crusaders was formed by the end of the weekend.

'Jan. 7, 2013: She met with Dr. Ghosh at 10 a.m. Monday. By noon, they had a plan, which changed Tuesday, and on Wednesday, she had her first dose of chemotherapy. The next day, the Crusaders delivered their first meal to Stoffer's family.

She had three types of chemo in six rounds through April 27, 2013. She went into clinical remission after the third round and had the mastectomy at the end of May. She kept her promise to have no evidence of disease by her husband's birthday, June 1, 2013.

Radiation followed in July and August. While she says she didn't have the usual side effects of chemo, except for fatigue, she did have an allergic reaction to the skin cream treating the radiation burns. That threatened her plans for breast reconstruction later that year, and sent her to her lowest point. Her household finances simply couldn't afford another two years of medical deductibles.

She has insurance, but the other expenses - from special bras and button-down shirts to other things she says you don't even think of - piled up and decimated their savings.

'The mental and emotional idea of going into another calendar year” was too much, her husband says.

Stoffer let down her positive guard very briefly, and let her mind go to a dark place.

'I went there but I didn't stay there,” she says. 'I had people to help pull me up.”

Her village stepped in, bringing along the community at large. They threw a 'Janboree” fundraiser in March 2013 at the Czech & Slovak Museum to help with all the secondary expenses.

'If they hadn't done that, we would be in so much trouble,” Stoffer says, tearing up. Later, her colleagues initiated yoga at work once a week when they saw her falling behind in her physical therapy.

'It's so amazing what people do,” she says. 'We could sustain our day-to-day expenses because we had so many generous friends. We can't begin to express how grateful we are. There are absolutely no words. Absolutely no words.”

THE CHILDREN

After radiation ended, Stoffer had the option of being done or facing one more major procedure: breast reconstruction. It would take her into calendar year 2014, which was not part of her plan, but she wanted the reconstruction for her children's sake.

'I have a young daughter who hasn't been through puberty, who doesn't know how her body's going to change,” she says. 'I have young boys who haven't learned about anatomy yet, and they need to know what a woman's body can do and what it can look like.

'If I had been at a different place in life, if I'd been older, if my children had been older, I don't know that I would have done the reconstruction, but I'm young. I'm gonna live a long time, and I have these children - and I think I would have regretted it if I hadn't.

'At the end of the day, I did do it for myself. It was a tough decision, because as soon as radiation was over, I could have been done - done, done, done, done, done, done.”

She used hyperbaric chamber treatments to speed up healing from the mastectomy, then had the reconstruction surgery Nov. 4 and went back to work in January. Today, she just needs 'a little tweaking” to complete the process, including a lift in her left breast so she'll 'have a matched set.” That will happen this year.

The kids have been involved all along the way, but talking to them was tough, since they were just 4 and 3 when it all began.

They told the kids: 'Mommy was going to the doctor, and Mommy was getting some medicine that was going to make Mommy feel bad, but it was going to help her in the long run,” Stoffer says. 'Mommy was going to feel bad for a short period of time, but she was going to get better. And Mommy was going to look funny for a while.”

She freaked out a little when her hair started falling out in chunks. Her scalp itched so badly, that one evening, she gathered up the kids and a bucket and had them start pulling out her hair. They pulled more the next morning, laughing and taking pictures so the kids wouldn't be scared, then Stoffer had her head shaved.

She says she always had some fuzz, so the kids called her 'Spikey.” They helped pick out clothes and hats, and all started wearing hats that January 2013. Her youngest, who loves to enact the 'Batman” vintage television series, had her play Egghead that year. Now that her hair is back, she gets to be Catwoman.

'I went from Vincent Price to Halle Berry - or is it Julie Newmar - which one is it,” she asks her husband.

'It's whichever Catwoman you want,” he says.

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@sourcemedia.net