After 20 years and facing three types of cancer, Jim Galinsky still feels lucky.
His cancers were all easy to find — either through self-examinations or by getting the routine screenings that his doctor has recommended. His mind wanders to the cancers that invade a person’s organs and aren’t easy to recognize until they’ve progressed.
In 1997, Galinsky was diagnosed with breast cancer after he noticed an “acorn,” as he called it, under the skin on the left side of his chest. Since then, the Franklin man has battled colon and skin cancers, too.
Not long after he was cleared of breast cancer, he was diagnosed with colon cancer after his family doctor advised him to get a routine colonoscopy. More recently, he has had multiple melanomas removed from his head and back, he said.
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Luckily, Galinsky said, all the cancers he has had were discovered fairly early on.
“The breast cancer, you can identify it by feeling your breast. The colon cancer, you can identify it with a colonoscopy. And the melanomas, of course, they’re on the surface of the skin, and you can see those. So all of the cancers that I’ve had are relatively easy to find and identify,” he said. “The thought that occurs to me occasionally is what happens if you have a cancer inside of you that is not readily identifiable?”
For example, his wife’s mother died quickly from pancreatic cancer. “It’s not typically identifiable until it gets a pretty good hold on you,” he said.
But cancer is not a death sentence if you monitor your body and health for abnormalities and keep up with doctor’s appointments and treatments, he said.
“I’m 82 years old, and my bucket list doesn’t have a lot of stuff left on it,” he said, chuckling.
For two decades, he’s fought off the disease, and for two decades, he’s won.
When the first bout came in the late ‘90s, Galinsky was already planning to get a free cancer screening weeks after he discovered the tumor in his breast, but for a different kind of cancer. He has many moles, and at the time he was taking advantage of free skin cancer screenings being offered in the Branson, Missouri, area, where he and his wife, Caroline, lived.
Long before any of his diagnoses, he had a non-cancerous carcinoma on his back that had to be removed, which is why he was keeping an eye out for skin cancer, he said. “I thought it was worthwhile to go to a free screening. It was just worth it to go see what (the doctor) had to say.”
When he first noticed the lump on his chest, he put it off, deciding to wait until the free screening to have a doctor look at it.
When the plastic surgeon looked at it, he referred Galinsky to another doctor, who did a surgical biopsy, which came back positive for breast cancer. Within weeks, he was undergoing a mastectomy, then chemotherapy, which consisted of four treatments, each three weeks apart, and lastly five years of Tamoxifen, an estrogen modulator drug that is used to further treat and prevent breast cancer from recurring.
“Boy, I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to go through (with the chemo) or not. My inclination was that I just didn’t want to put my body through that. I waited until about two days before the surgery, and the light finally came on and I said to Caroline, ‘I’m going to go through with it. I’d rather go through with it now than wish in five years that I had gone through with it,’” he said.
It never crossed his mind that this was breast cancer and men don’t get breast cancer, which is what a lot of men say when they’re first diagnosed.
“It was just something that had to be treated,” he said. “I don’t think I was upset about it. I had no idea what I was about to go through, but I had to just follow the steps and keep the appointments and do what the doctors told me.”
During chemo, his family doctor advised Galinsky to have a colonoscopy, mostly due to his age. His oncologist said absolutely not, not until he was done with chemo, which was already taking a toll on his body.
By the time he got around to having the exam, a malignant tumor in his colon had grown to about 20 centimeters, which doctors were able to remove successfully, he said. Luckily, doctors still caught it early enough that it was totally encapsulated and had not penetrated the colon wall, Galinsky said.
Skin cancer is still what scares him the most, he said. He sees a dermatologist two to three times a year and has had six melanomas, all of which were removed successfully. The most recent bout was 18 months ago, when doctors discovered two melanomas on his head.
“There are many different skin cancers, but a melanoma is very serious. It can, if let go, metastasize and very quickly kill you. Most of the other skin cancers are just an annoyance. If let go, they’ll get larger, and they’ll start to bleed. But a melanoma, if you don’t have it treated, it is a death sentence,” Galinsky said.
Cancer runs in his family, but so does strength, he said.
Interestingly enough, Galinsky’s mother had breast cancer, and his father had colon cancer. His mother lived to be 100 years old, and his father lived to be 98 years old. His maternal grandmother, who also had breast cancer, lived to be more than 100 years old, he said.
“Tough Germans,” Caroline Galinsky said.
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What has cancer taught you?
Live each day at a time. I think I am closer to the Lord because of it, and I read the Bible every morning now. To quote a friend of mine, who I watched die inch by inch: Every day is a blessing. Enjoy it.
How has cancer changed you?
I don’t know that it’s changed me. Very conscious of getting to the doctor and keeping the doctor’s appointments. More concerned about health.
What would you tell someone just diagnosed?
Be positive. Cancer is not a death sentence. Follow the protocol, do what you’re told to do. Read "the bible for women with breast cancer" by Dr. Susan Love.
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Name: James (Jim) Galinsky
Age: 82
Diagnosis: Breast, colon and skin cancers
Treatments: At least 8 surgeries; chemotherapy for the breast cancer
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