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Although she logged 70 hours in the doctor’s office over six months, Milone scheduled her medical appointments so they were least disruptive to her work schedule. Her husband would drive her to chemotherapy appointments on Fridays, and she would be back in the office on Mondays. “One time, I had chemo treatment on Friday, and had to go to a grand opening on Saturday,” Milone says.
“I am still in awe that Deb was able to manage her treat- ment schedule and yet meet her work-related obligations and responsibilities,” says Powers. “Her boundless commitment
to the Chamber, even during that uncertain time, has led to exceptional growth, expanded benefits and services, and a re-engaged membership. Deb handled things so gracefully, effectively, and seamlessly that some Chamber members are going to be surprised to hear about her breast cancer.”
While, physically, Milone felt strong, her treatments of Tamoxifen, an endocrine therapy, put her body through menopause, which threw her hormones out of whack and left her waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks. “People have commented that I was overly anxious,” she says.
“I was a nutcase a couple times.”
And her month of radiation in March 2011 coincided with her busiest month yet at work. She started radiation the week before the Hudson Valley Gateway Chamber of Commerce’s annual awards dinner, and ended it the week after its first-ever consumer expo week, the Hudson Valley Gateway Experience. The radiation nurses asked her to take time off, but she ignored their advice. She would go to work in the morn- ing, drive up to Fishkill, New York, for treatment in the afternoon, and then go straight back to work. “People said radiation was going to knock me out, but my energy level was pretty good,”
Milone says.
There were some logistical hurdles.
When she tried on gowns for the annual dinner-dance, her body was still marked up with blue lines used in prep for radiation treatment. But by the time of the awards dinner, held at The Mansion at Colonial Terrace in Cortlandt Manor, Milone’s blue lines had washed away. And while she at first shied away from discussing her diagnosis with Chamber members, by this time she was open about her diagnosis. Two of her fellow board members were diagnosed with breast cancer around the same time, and they all supported each other.
Milone has now finished radiation and chemotherapy. “In hindsight, I con- sider myself exceptionally lucky,” she says. “I feel good. There’s no guarantee it’s not going to come back, but I don’t think about it until I go in for my mam- mogram.” And Milone is grateful she had her job as a distraction. “If you stay home and think about things, it makes things worse,” she says. “You have no control of what’s happening to you physically. But you have control over what else is happening.”
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