Breast cancer is no match
Staying busy is key for Mineral Ridge mother
MINERAL RIDGE — You can say it’s been a roller coaster ride of sorts for Colleen Mohr since 2018.
That’s when she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, and she’s been in treatment most of the time since.
“You kind of get almost tunnel vision,” Mohr, 36, said.
“You’re like, ‘I know I need to do this to survive. I don’t know how I’m going to do it or get through it.'”
In 2014, Mohr gave birth to daughter Marli and thought she had a clogged milk duct from breastfeeding.
“It felt a little hard, like a little cyst or something,” she said.
Eventually, her entire right breast became hard, itchy and hot to the touch. That’s when she knew something more was going on.
The diagnosis was difficult to explain to her family, which includes son Derrick, who was around 10 at the time, Marli who was a couple of years old, and fiance Jason Booker.
Hailing from Florida, Mohr met Booker at a restaurant where they both worked in the sunny state. She came to Ohio, Booker’s home state, in 2011.
The first round of chemotherapy wasn’t a walk in the park, either, which Mohr said is often referred to as the “red devil” because it’s hard on the body.
Following her diagnosis, Mohr began chemo in January 2019 and began 33 rounds of treatment that included eight initial weekly chemo appointments and 33 radiations for a month to her rib and side area. She also had a double mastectomy with reconstruction.
Tunnel vision applied to more than the disease.
Throughout her treatment, Mohr has kept a routine not just for her, but for her children.
She’s juggled school drop-offs and pickups, doctors appointments, sporting events and everything in between.
Her family has been there for Mohr, too.
“My son would actually, at 10 years old, come up to my room and ask if I needed some crackers and a juice before school,” Mohr said.
To help get her through it all, she’s been relying on her faith in God, but also the doctors, trusting they know what they’re doing, she said.
In 2019 Mohr wrapped up treatment. Then in 2020, she was given the news she had stage 4 cancer after an annual checkup.
“I just sat there and cried,” she said. “I just went through all that stuff and here we are again.”
The second time around, she and Jason waited around six months to tell the kids the cancer was back. They wanted to see how Mohr’s response to a daily chemo was going to go.
Throughout all of it, the kids knew mom was going to the doctor for checkups, she said.
Radiation to her spine was incorporated into her treatment plan this time around, because that’s where the cancer is now along with being detected in her pelvis, Mohr said.
Ongoing treatment at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital is part of her routine.
Mohr was a medical assistant for about a year until she learned of her diagnosis. The day she had a biopsy she was supposed to work, but didn’t go.
She ended up taking a leave of absence because she wasn’t sure how she would juggle her career, treatment and life at home.
Her hat’s off to the people who do work throughout treatment while raising a family.
“I don’t know how they do it,” she said with a laugh.
Mohr keeps on going.
She’s a stay-at-home mom to Derrick and Marli, ages 16 and 9, respectively, but she’s taken some time to follow a passion she’s had for years.
“I was always interested in photography and picked it up when my son was in sports,” she said.
It started as a way to document her family, but she takes snapshots for others now, too.
“It gives me something to do,” she said. “It’s a passion, a light.”