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Man’s positive attitude, support helped family cope with cancer

Diagnosis came as shock, but Greg Sagraves was never afraid to fight it, his wife says.

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By Matt Sanctis, Staff Writer 8:38 PM Saturday, October 17, 2009

SOUTH VIENNA — When Greg Sagraves learned he had breast cancer, he decided early on he would treat it like he treated most of the other challenges in his life.

He worked hard to beat it, refused to quit, and found a way to make a joke out of it.

Sagraves, of South Vienna, first noticed a small lump on his breast while he was taking a shower in 2002.

At first, he didn’t think much of it. But when his nipples started to invert, he scheduled an appointment with his physician.

After a series of tests, including a lumpectomy, a surgery to remove the tumor, he was diagnosed with invasive ductile carcinoma, or breast cancer, in September 2002.

“He was shocked,” said his wife, Rhonda. “He thought men don’t get this.”

While breast cancer can affect both sexes, there is less awareness about male breast cancer, largely because it’s so rare, said Rachel Layman, an assistant professor of hematology and oncology at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center — Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.

Layman, who has worked with breast cancer patients for about five years, said she has seen only a handful of male patients. The disease is 100 times more common for women than men.

“It’s not very common,” Layman said.

In Greg’s case, Rhonda said her husband made the decision early on that he would fight the disease.

He had a mastectomy one month after he was diagnosed, and in December 2002, he began a treatment regime that included eight months of chemotherapy and 30 treatments of radiation.

The mastectomy revealed that although the tumor was small, the cancer had spread and 13 of his lymph nodes showed signs of cancer.

From the beginning though, Greg showed no signs of defeat, and more often than not, found ways to make jokes about the situation.

“His thing was I’ve got it, I’ll deal with it,” Rhonda said.

The disease was a shock to the family, in part because Greg had always been healthy, aside from high blood pressure.

A former wrestler and football player at Greenon High School, Greg was a bull of a man who worked maintenance at Honda and was known as “Big Dad” to his co-workers. He met Rhonda on a blind date in 1975 and they were married a year later.

“He was never afraid to fight it,” Rhonda said. “I’ve got to say that was probably his strongest point.”

The treatments were often difficult for her husband, Rhonda said.

At times, the medication left a taste in Greg’s mouth that he described as like aluminum foil. The treatments left him with flu-like symptoms. Radiation treatments left marks on his body that resembled a bad sunburn.

Rhonda said for her husband, losing his hair was one of the most difficult side effects of the chemotherapy treatment, which can attack hair roots along with the rapidly growing cancer cells.

As he lost his hair, Greg still usually managed to make light of the situation. He lost the hair on his head, but not his facial hair.

“He said, ‘why couldn’t (the chemotherapy) have taken my beard?’ because he hated shaving,” Rhonda said.

Support from friends and neighbors was crucial, Rhonda said. When he became self-conscious about his hair loss, she said his co-workers all shaved their heads as well. They even took up a collection which raised $800 for the family, even though his insurance was covering the majority of the medical costs.

While it was a difficult time for Greg, Rhonda remembers he often mentioned how much more difficult it might be for others.

“He could understand how devastating it would be for a woman,” she said of her husband’s hair loss.

Beth O’Brien, a clinical research nurse at the Springfield Regional Cancer Center, still remembers treating Greg, in part because of his attitude throughout the treatment. While losing a breast and hair would be extremely difficult for many people, she said Greg took it all in stride and tried to find humor in his situation.

“He just made a big joke about it,” O’Brien said.

Although the cancer center was a difficult place to be, Greg’s son Benjamin remembers his father used it as a reminder that some people had it even worse than him.

“He said it was the saddest place in the world, but he would go down there and have fun,” Benjamin said.

Layman, of the OSU cancer center, said treatment options are essentially the same for men and women. Typically, along with surgery to remove the lump, patients also can be treated with chemotherapy and radiation, depending on the diagnosis. Many males, she said, can also receive hormone therapy, including Tamoxifen, a drug that interferes with the interaction between cancer cells and estrogen.

Because the disease is often linked to family history, Greg’s sons Benjamin and Brian, have been told they are at higher risk for breast cancer.

While they try to keep it in the back of their minds, Benjamin said they have learned from their father not to dwell on the possibility.

“Your life changes, but it doesn’t stop,” Benjamin said.

Rhonda remembers her husband’s willingness to discuss his disease with others as he progressed through his treatment. About two years ago, he spoke to a group of men suffering from prostate cancer, even though he was concerned that he knew little about that disease.

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