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Mother With Breast Cancer Gives Birth Prematurely
Groton woman, unborn baby on uncertain journey
By Bethe Dufresne - TheDay.com - 9/16/2002
Charnette Messé of Groton visits with her newborn son, Christian, in the Newborn Intensive Care Nursury at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital.
Photo Credit: Tim Martin / The Day
Diagnosed with advanced stage breast cancer at age 31, the same week she learned that she was pregnant, Charnette Messé was resigned to a struggle as she prepared for her baby's November due date. Early on, there would be surgery and chemotherapy to get through, followed by hard decisions about the timing of further cancer treatment.
But she prayed for a normal start for the little boy growing inside her.
Still fearful about her own prognosis, but assured that the fetus was developing fine, she imagined what it would be like when her baby boy was with her in one of the spacious maternity rooms at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London.
The
room would be filled with light and flowers, and she would feed her baby
from her right breast, the one not taken in her mastectomy. A day or so
later, he would go home in her arms, to the light blue room she would by
then have finished decorating.
That scenario is shattered on Sept. 6 when Messé is hospitalized with severe pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH), also known as pre-eclampsia. When told that doctors will have to induce labor, she realizes that her baby faces a struggle, too.
"It's like we're fighting this together," says Messé.
* * * * * * * * * *
Charnette holds her newborn son, Christian who was born ten weeks premature. Christian will remain in the Newborn Intensive Care Nursery at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital for six to ten weeks.
Photo Credit: Tim Martin / The Day
Christian Vernon Messé is born at 4:45 a.m. on Sept. 9, weighing three pounds, two ounces. The first photos show Mess with red, puffy eyes and a wan smile, cradling her son, who is attached to an array of life- sustaining tubes in L&M's prenatal unit.
About 90 percent of babies born at 30 weeks do fine, says Dr. Edward J. Watson, who delivered the baby. It helped that there was time to administer steroids to speed the development of Christian's lungs and other organs.
Thirty hours after his birth, Christian is partially breathing on his own, and his mother's blood pressure, which was 160 over 110 when she was admitted to the hospital, is dropping. But she still has a bad PIH headache, which explains why the shades are drawn, visitors speak in whispers, and there's a “Do Not Knock” sign posted on the door.
Mess'és husband, Tom, a Navy doctor stationed at the U.S. Naval Submarine Base in Groton, arrives Tuesday afternoon with their 3-year-old daughter, Gabrielle, and Charnette's mother, Arlene Kirkland, who lives in New York City. "Gabby" sucks on an orange Popsicle, and things start to look a bit normal.
"Here's the man who's keeping my baby alive," Messé announces as Dr. David Cheromcha, L&M's director of neo-natology, comes in.
"I think Christian is doing that all by himself," says Cheromcha. But the baby will still have to stay in the hospital for six to 10 weeks.
"If Christian had been born when he was supposed to, he'd be the healthiest baby alive," says Messé. It's hard to tell if she's speaking with her usual positivism or with a touch of ironic bitterness.
Resolved to aggressively take charge of her own medical care, and deeply influenced by her Catholic faith, Mess has astounded people with her determination. But her head is killing her, she feels nauseated, and she's tired.
PIH isn't extremely rare, says Watson, but it is less common in second pregnancies, especially with the same partner in a long-term relationship. Messé, who has researched virtually every aspect of her medical condition, says there is only one other documented case of a pregnant woman with cancer who also got PIH.
"So I'm number two," says Messé.
The day after giving birth, Messé is tired and suffering from headaches brought on by pre-eclampsia, a condition that forced doctors to induce labor.
Photo Credit: Tim Martin / The Day
The Groton dance teacher and greeting card designer has grown used to looking less than her elegant self, but today the signs of strain are harsher than usual. Her body is still swollen from the dual effects of pregnancy and PIH, her eyelids are red, and her dark hair is a thin layer of fuzz after chemotherapy. Clad in a red nightshirt, she shifts uncomfortably in her bed.
"It's frustrating, because I expected to be in this room with Christian here with me," she says tearfully. Seeing him in the neo-natal intensive care unit, so small, so fragile, seems to be a reminder of the fragility of everything.
Almost ashamedly, Messé quickly changes the subject to what purpose might be behind her suffering, and what good might come of it.
Before she knew her husband, Messé had an abortion, and she remains tormented by this. Tom Messé is a vigorous anti-abortion advocate, but he has stood solidly by his wife, even "adopting" the baby she aborted years ago as his own.
Perhaps, says Charnette, this premature birth is a sign from God that "all life, however young, is precious."
"He's absolutely perfect," says Tom of Christian, adding that he hopes abortion advocates will look at pictures of his son and see the error of their ways.
Women who are Charnette Messé's age, now 32, aren't expected to get breast cancer — but they do.
Since she was diagnosed, Messé has been on a campaign to encourage women to get mammograms at a younger age, to research treatment on their own, and never to let the odds make them complacent.
Messé says she was briefly lifted out of her worries when one of the nurses, Vicki Mea, dropped off a “New Mother” kit with a blue rattle on it. It's nice to feel like a mother rather than a patient, Messé says.
But the patient in her is never far away, as evidenced by her bedside reading.
One of the books is about Herceptin, a relatively new breast cancer treatment that Messé may receive as part of a regimen that will also include radiation and Taxol, a chemotherapy that couldn't be used during pregnancy.
Another book is "Cancer Talk: Voices of Hope and Endurance from ‘The Group Room' — The World's Largest Cancer Support Group," by Selma R. Schimmel, who hosts a nationally syndicated radio call-in show about cancer. Messé says the show isn't carried here, but she's heard it on the Internet.
She's also contacted Schimmel, who was diagnosed with breast cancer 20 years ago, at age 28. Just then, the phone rings. It's Schimmel, calling from Los Angeles to see how Messé and Christian are doing.
The two women bemoan the fact that "The Group Room" generally has a hard time getting picked up by radio stations. So-called "Death Radio" is believed to be a turn-off, Schimmel says, "but everyone has been touched by cancer."
Schimmel isn't the first celebrity that Messé has attracted to her cause. When Mea arrives to take Mess down the hall for a visit with Christian, Messé dons an expensive embroidered white cotton robe that she wore for a photo shoot for "Rosie" magazine's October issue. "Rosie" is featuring her and Gabby in an article about breast cancer prevention.
"Gabby got the same robe," Messé says.
* * * * * * * * * *
Messé thought she'd be going home Wednesday. But late that morning, her room is still dark to help soothe the ache and pounding in her head.
The sight of Gregory Mullaney, pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Groton, cheers her. "I knew you'd come," she says softly. With Tom Messé standing by, Mullaney says a prayer over her.
"What is your baby's name?" asks Mullaney. He smiles approvingly at hearing "Christian," then departs to say a prayer over the newborn.
Although chemotherapy weakens the immune system, no doctor has said that Messé's PIH is anything but another unlucky break. The headache is a predictable side effect, and doesn't indicate any resurgence of cancer. Give it a little more time, she's told, and take some aspirin.
Nevertheless, Messé demands a CAT scan.
"I'm through with the uncommon, the unlikely," she says, sitting up tall and almost defiant in her bed. "I'm done with it."
"People said, ‘You're too young to have breast cancer.' Now my life is on the line because of that, and my breast is gone," she says.
It hurts, says Messé, to look back at her medical records prior to her cancer diagnosis, and see that Navy doctors didn't take seriously her complaints in 1997 and 1998 that she feared she had cancer in her left breast.
It hurts, too, she says, that right when she was diagnosed her husband's workload was increased, adding to the family's already severe stress level. She now has to worry, as well, about her husband's health. "He weighs only 130 pounds," she says, "the same as me."
"All along," says Messé, "people have been saying, ‘How much more can one person take?' I can take whatever's dealt to me. But I do not want the time that I have to be wasted.
"So I'm done. Give me my CAT scan, and my headache will go away."
At 11:35, an aide arrives with a stretcher to take her to radiology. Before the day is out she has her results: no evidence of cancer.
Contrary to Messé's prediction, the headache persists. But later that day, she is able to go home. Christian continues to improve. By Thursday night, he is breathing totally on his own, and even taking in a little formula through an oral gastric tube.
"He certainly came out kicking and screaming," recalls his mother.
"So he's a fighter. Funny thing."
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