Two-Time Cancer Survivor Gene Watsky, of Ossining, Considers Herself Blessed

Gene Watsky, 57, of Ossining owns the unenviable distinction of being a two-time cancer survivor, a badge she wears with some hesitation. 

"I don't know about calling myself a survivor," she said. "We're all survivors of something, right?" 

Nonetheless, she's well worthy of the annual celebration put on by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Sleepy Hollow, gathering cancer survivors, their loved ones, and their life-saving staff members at a dinner at Tarrytown's DoubleTree Hotel. 

Watsky has gone to this survivorship dinner and on and off over the 13 years since she kicked her first cancer, but it was this year that she felt really ready to share her story more publicly. 

Not that she'd been silent in the past -- Watsky had just been busy helping others in her boat. For two years a few years back, she volunteered at Yorktown's Support Connections, working a hotline for people calling in with their concerns, emotions, and questions over their ovarian and breast cancers. 

Watsky is particularly qualified for the role as she has survived both. 

In 2000, at the age of 44, she felt slight stomach discomfort that she wrote off for a while as indigestion. Even her doctor put her off for a month when she finally decided to call for an appointment. The ob-gyn suspected fybroids and ordered a sonogram. Turns out, "I was pretty bad off with tumors on both ovaries." Already a scary stage 3, localized to one general area but advanced.

In only 10 days time, Watsky had undergone a full hysterectomy. She had half a dozen chemotherapy treatments. A subsequent "second look" surgery showed she was all clear. She endured four cycles of treatments directly into her abdomen. In total, this all took about a year. 

"A journey," she says with a laugh, but she was unfortunately not done after all.

Several years later, doctors found something amiss in her breasts. Watsky says she had, since her 40s, had biopsies for lumps but never like this. Again she was already at stage three cancer and doctors had to ask fast. "I was back at Sloane-Kettering, though I never really left."

The treatment this time was "pretty rigorous." First, she had 16 cycles of chemo, followed by a bilateral (double) mastectomy, and 13 weeks of radiation. 

At the time, they were starting to begin genetic testing and Gene resisted the idea. "I'd already gone through this, so what could testing tell me?" she wondered. But then she realized this was for the sake of her family. 

Test results rocked her family. Her brother and sister tested positive for the infamous BRCA2 (pronounced "brak-uh") mutation -- the same verdict that recently lead Angelina Jolie to get preventative double masectomy. 

"It started a major upheaval," Watsky said, and a whole chain of discoveries. The truth emerged that all those aunts and her father's side that she remembered dying so young in their 40s had died from breast cancer. The news was bad but relatives were "thankful they dodged a bullet that I had to take."

It's been six years since her breast cancer diagnosis, 13 from her ovarian and she feels only gratitude. "I have a lot of blessings. A lot of women have issues with support and employment. I feel lucky."

Watsky still holds the same job that carried her through both her cancers, at a printing/graphics company in Cortlandt Manor that let her come and go for treatments as need be. She has two sons, the youngest who was in college during her first diagnosis, and an ever-supportive husband. "I was fortunate not to have babies in the house," she said.

"I did well," Watsky said, though "recurrence is always possible. You're never really out of the woods." This is a reality she doesn't really dwell on either. "In life, anything can happen. After 13 years, I feel like I'll deal with it, whatever happens."

Several years after her breast cancer when it was safe to consider reconstruction, Watsky decided emphatically, "I was not." With the risk of leaking implants, the whole "huge deal" of skin transfers from belly to chest, "I decided I was done with surgery." Instead, she wears prosthetics, though "no one would notice." 

None of that matters to Watsky; it's the healthy lifestyle thing she's ever more committed to: exercising, watching her diet. And keeping up on her appointments. "It's important to take care of yourself," she advises. "Go to the doctor. I didn't feel ill... They say cancer, especially ovarian, can come in with a whisper, they're not kidding. The symptoms are vague. Early detection, as with every cancer, is really important."

Watsky calls the many staff members who assisted her "angels on earth." The chemo nurses in particular, she said, would see her at her worse -- no hair, nauseous -- and tell her she looked stunning, finding a way to make her laugh, to "make you come back." 

Her oncologist Dr. Carolyn Wasserheit, her ob-gyn Dr. Sarina Distefano, the list goes on. And those friends with cancer: "you meet people that are way sicker than you, not as sick as you. And you see how wonderful people can be in this medical field of ours."

Dr. Stephanie Smith-Marrone, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Sleepy Hollow, was the MC for the survivorship celebration on Wednesday, and spoke of how meaningful these dinners are for all involved. "It is great to take a moment to see your patients outside of the clinic, dressed up and just enjoying themselves with their friends and family," she said. "It’s just joyous! As a physician, I love to know that I helped someone get to this event."

Survivors like Watsky have so much gratitude to their caregivers, who in turn express gratitude to their patients. Smith-Marrone said how much she has learned from such people. "A big reward of my job is witnessing the courage and particular strengths that patients bring in facing their diagnoses and treatments," she said. "I have learned a tremendous amount about the resiliency of people to meet daunting prognoses, difficult social lives and physical discomfort. I often think about how one day, when I or a loved one faces these circumstances, I hope that I will be able to draw on the memory of bravery that I have witnessed in so many patients."
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From Memorial Sloan-Kettering Sleepy Hollow:

Anyone living with a history of cancer — from the moment of diagnosis through the remainder of life — is a cancer survivor. There are approximately 14 million cancer survivors in the United States. Many of them face a number of challenges, such as hindered access to cancer specialists and promising new treatments, inadequate or no insurance, financial hardships, employment problems, and psychological struggles. The survivorship celebration for patients and staff at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Sleepy Hollow gives them the opportunity to demonstrate that life after a cancer diagnosis can be meaningful, active, and productive, despite these difficulties.

For more information click Memorial Sloan-Kettering Sleepy Hollow or Memorial Sloan-Kettering Survivorship Center.