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HELLO, 47! WHEN CONFRONTED WITH BREAST CANCER LAST YEAR, THIS POLE BENDER WAS SCARED SHE'D NEVER SEE ANOTHER WORLD SHOW. BY BECKY NEWELL, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR At the 2007 World Show, then-46-year-old Stephanie Marcum thought she’d never live to see 47. Just a day after arriving at the show to compete in pole bending, Stephanie got a call from her doctor back home in Indiana, telling her that she had cancer in her right breast and in the lymph nodes under her right arm and in her neck. “I had been to (the All American Quarter Horse) Congress the week before the World Show and knew something wasn’t right because I could feel the lymph nodes in my neck and under my arm – they were swollen,” Stephanie said. “But I also thought that it could have been allergies because I had been around a camp fire.” When she got home from Congress, she had one day – a Tuesday – to get tests done to determine what the problem was because she was leaving for the World Show the next day. So Stephanie headed to Oklahoma City on Wednesday without any answers because the doctor wasn’t going to have the test results back for two more days. On Thursday of that week, Stephanie and her husband, Barry, arrived in Oklahoma City and were getting ready for Stephanie’s runs in senior and amateur pole bending when Stephanie finally got the news from her doctor. But the pharmacist from Brownsburg, Indiana, wasn’t going down without a fight – at the World Show or at the doctor’s office. She captured the reserve world champion title at the World in amateur pole bending, then went home and developed a plan to battle the cancer that had invaded her body. Her new health strategy included a new diet devoid of meat and sugar, a 16-week series of chemotherapy, an exercise routine before each chemo treatment and massage therapy after each treatment. “I chose to look at it as a challenge,” she said. “The chemo affected my neurologic system that included myelitis or weakness in my legs. The exercise and massage really helped my leg muscles.” Her strategy worked. “By Day 14, I had 50 to 60 percent tumor degradation,” she said. “The best thing was that you could see the tumors melt away because they were just under my skin. By Day 28, all of the swelling was down and you couldn’t see it.” So by the time Stephanie had surgery in April 2008, the doctor couldn’t detect a lump in Stephanie’s breast or lumps under her arm or in her neck. But she went ahead with the complete mastectomy on her right breast and removal of the lymph nodes. “My doctor said it didn’t appear to be a garden-variety of cancer,” she said. “They could have just cut out the area where the tumor had been in my breast, but I didn’t want to risk it coming back.” Stephanie then went through 33 treatments of radiation. “I did really well through the whole thing,” she said. “I had a lot of help from family and friends. We used to go to lunch on the days I had treatments.” Even though initially her doctors really didn’t want her horseback, Stephanie could stay away her horse, 11-year-old Moon Struck Sue, for only so long. “My doctor knows I’ve been riding, but he doesn’t know I’m competing at the World Show,” Stephanie said. “I hope to walk into his office with a trophy when I get back home.” At this year’s World Show, Stephanie is back, healthy as ever, but extremely emotional. “I’m 47 … that’s an age I thought I wouldn’t ever see,” a crying Stephanie said after her run in the amateur pole bending Saturday morning, November 8. “I’m great. Healthy.” EDITOR'S NOTE: At this year's World Show, Stephanie Marcum finished fourth in senior pole bending and fourth in amateur pole bending.
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