MUSCATINE, Iowa — Connie Keitel didn’t want Thanksgiving to become “the dreaded holiday,” so she didn’t tell her friends and relatives that she had breast cancer until the day after.

She remembers a sister-in-law announcing news of her own breast cancer diagnosis on Thanksgiving a couple years prior and what that did to the mood of the day.

The Keitels were spending Thanksgiving 2005 at her in-laws’ home in Lost Nation.

“I wanted to keep everything as normal as possible,” said Keitel, now 43. “Dinner and Scrabble afterward.”

Of course her husband, Joe, knew, and took her to her first outpatient surgery the day after Thanksgiving.

She returned to Lost Nation after the surgery, packed and bandaged on one side. One of her daughters went to give her a hug, which made Keitel wince.

Then she knew she had to tell them.

“I cried,” she said.

Lauren was 8 at the time and Megan was 5. She thinks they may have been a little young to realize mommy had a life-threatening disease.

Keitel had found a tiny lump and told her doctor about it during her annual medical exam.

Her advice to all women?

“If you find a lump of any size, have it checked immediately. Don’t allow it to grow. And get a second opinion if necessary.”

Keitel remembers that when the mammography technician and the radiologist came into the room to tell her she had cancer, she didn’t cry.

“I asked, ‘What do I do now?”’

Then she set her mind to fight.

Within three weeks of being diagnosed, Keitel had to cope with: 

* Two lumpectomies

* Research papers to write for the classes she was taking at Muscatine Community College

* Final exams

*  The usual flurry of Christmas shopping, decorating, baking

Tears came later.

“I remember sitting in my recliner on Christmas Day and just bawling,” she said. She had her second lumpectomy the day after Christmas.

Keitel’s size of cancer was borderline as to whether she needed to undergo chemotherapy treatments. But, after a gene test, the oncologist told her she was at higher risk and advised her to proceed with chemotherapy.

She remembers her mother and sister Cathy — already a breast-cancer survivor —going to that appointment with her.

Keitel did have a large support system. She is one of nine children and her husband is one of 11.

 She said she has especially appreciated her husband’s love and support.

“He was the one who encouraged me to pursue a bachelor’s degree and works hard to provide for our family so I can go to school and be a stay-at-home mom.”

Joe is a senior product design engineer at HNI and teaches engineering classes two nights a week at Western Illinois University, Moline campus.

Keitel began a series of four chemo treatments from January — April 2006. Joe took her to each appointment.

Keitel said she shed tears along with her hair when it started falling out by the handful after her second treatment. She began wearing a bandana.

“I didn’t allow anyone to take a picture of me without hair,” she said.

A longtime friend and former co-worker at Allsteel, Melissa Mueller, said she vividly recalls the day she took Keitel to pick out a wig.

“I felt honored that she trusted me enough to let me take her,” Mueller said. “It was a difficult day for Connie, but as I recall, Whitey’s ice cream helped.”

Keitel also remembers.

It was a day of extremes. The two laughed when she tried on a particular spiky-haired wig, then Keitel said she had to step outside to compose herself when the tears started to flow.

Mueller also gave Keitel a  blue hat, which Keitel has kept, although she said it’s been sat on and her kids have played with it.

“I liked that hat,” Keitel said. “I thought it was stylish and I practically lived in it.”

In June 2006, Keitel took 33 rounds of radiation treatments at the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics.

She explains the experience this way. “I drove to Iowa City every day for a 1-minute treatment.”

Most graduates only have to worry about keeping their mortarboards on their heads.

During her graduation ceremony from Muscatine Community College that spring, Keitel said she had to struggle to keep her wig and her mortarboard on.

This December, Keitel should get that bachelor’s degree she’s been working toward. It will be a liberal arts degree from Western Illinois University, the same school where Joe teaches.

But her most important degree?

Breast cancer survivor.

Editor’s note: This story is one in a month-long series the Muscatine Journal is printing in March. The stories will focus on local people, groups and businesses that have overcome               economic obstacles and other personal adversity to help make the community better and create better lives for themselves and those around them.

DETAILS

Name: Connie Keitel

Age: 43

Residence: Muscatine

Hometown: Britt, Iowa

Immediate family: Husband, Joe; daughters Lauren, 11, Megan, 8

Interests/activities: Co-ed volleyball league, lector at St. Mathias Church, vice regent of Catholic Daughters, heads up “Popcorn Fridays” for Grant Elementary School PTO, volunteers during Accelerated Reading program once a week in daughter Megan’s third-grade class at Grant, helps serve church funeral dinners, noon fitness class at Y, member of Hanson’s Halos Relay for Life team