All in the family

Noreen Hyslop photo The Gisi family, Cathy and Mary Jo (standing) and their parents, Esther and Chales, share six separate cancer diagnoses.

Managing Editor

The Gisi family from rural Essex is a close knit unit. Charles and Esther Gisi raised their two daughters, Cathy and Mary Jo, on the family farm where hard work went hand-in-hand with faithful worship every Sunday. That strong family foundation has served them well over the years, but perhaps never quite so importantly as in recent times.

The family is a sharing foursome. They share their values, and they share in praise and in their love of music. They share in joy and in times of sorrow, but a cancer diagnosis is something none of them wished to share at all. Yet, they all did--all four of them, with mother and two daughters diagnosed within a single year.

It began with the senior Gisi, the head of the family. Charles was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1991.

"I was 73," he recalls, "and the doctors kept telling me it was diverticulosis that was giving me problems, but I kept telling them there was something else going on."

Gisi's persistence paid off and a subsequent colonoscopy determined that indeed, he had colon cancer. Surgery was performed during which a two and one-half foot section of the colon was removed. Fortunately, no chemotherapy was necessary.

Charles was not as fortunate in 2003 when doctors found he had lymphoma.

"It was discovered in the neck area," he recalls, "and that time I did have to have chemotherapy."

The six months of treatments were aggressive and took their toll on the then 85-year-old. The daughters took turns coming home from their homes in St. Louis and Virginia to help their mother care for their father as he battled back from the effects of not only the disease itself, but the treatments.

"It was very rough on him," his wife of 63 years attests, and his daughters agree, "It was pretty bad."

The head of the family is 92 now, and his pace has slowed since years past; but his eyes are bright and he looks only forward.

Not to be outdone, Esther reported to her doctor in January 2007 for what was to be a routine checkup that turned out to be anything but routine.

"Lab results showed that my calcium levels were way too high," she recalls. "My doctor ordered me to be admitted to the hospital right away."

Several tests were run and doctors found that Esther, much like her husband, had lymphoma in the area of the neck but fortunately not involving the thyroid.

Within three weeks, she was administered her first round of what would be several months of chemotherapy.

"The first dose was on my birthday on Jan. 22," she remembers. The treatments would ensue through May 2007.

"The treatments weren't pleasant," Esther recalls, "but they weren't as bad as they were on Charles."

A low point for Esther came during the course of her chemotherapy when she was further diagnosed with congestive heart failure.

Three months following the conclusion of her treatment, Esther reported to the doctor for a checkup and received a clean bill of health. At the six-month interval, though, she was not so fortunate.

A biopsy of her bone marrow revealed that she had multiple myeloma, a cancer of the white blood cells. It is typically difficult to diagnose and considered to be an incurable form of cancer. It is, however, treatable. Since her diagnosis in March 2008, she has made monthly trips for chemotherapy treatments, first reporting to Cape Girardeau, but since December 2009 to a St. Louis facility. She will follow the monthly treatment schedule for the rest of her life. Currently, each trip is followed the next day by a trip to Cape where she receives additional chemo. The journeys and the treatments have become routine for the now 82-year-old.

The Gisi's oldest daughter, Cathy, was the next to be included on the list of cancer victims in the family. Her diagnosis came just one month following her mother's initial diagnosis early in 2007.

"I had a routine mammogram," she says, "and a small lump was found in the right breast."

A lumpectomy followed, and it was found to be malignant. The cancer was estrogen-receptive and was deemed to be slow-growing. The third family member was assigned a regimen of chemotherapy. For Cathy, the schedule lasted for six months, followed by six weeks of radiation at a St. Louis medical facility. She credits the support of her husband, James Alan, also an Essex native, along with her three children, in providing for her needs during her eventual treatment and recovery. Living nearly 200 miles away in Chesterfield, the most difficult role for the eldest daughter was changing roles from caregiver to patient.

Seven months later in September 2007, the youngest member of the Gisi family, Mary Jo, joined the ranks.

"Mine was a surprise finding," Mary Jo Mills explains.

Mary Jo was in the habit of coming home from her Virginia home periodically to help care for her parents. She left the area several years ago for life with her military career husband, Steve, who recently retired at the rank of colonel. It was one of those return trips home from having cared for her mother in the fall of 2006 that she experienced some sharp back pain. That pain led her to see a doctor upon arriving home. Through a series of tests, including an ultrasound, her doctor discovered an ovarian cyst. The finding was totally unrelated to the back pain.

"The back pain subsided, and I never experienced it again," Mary Jo recalls, "but I am convinced that the pain was so God-driven because I would most likely not have seen a physician until it was too late."

Mary Jo was told that the cyst was not uncommon, and that it would be observed for change at subsequent annual visits. For the first year following that advice, she was content with that direction, although a bit uneasy that the cyst remained where it should not be.

After two years, given the same advice, Mary Jo, much like her father before her, insisted that a more aggressive plan be put into place. She consulted a gynecologist who at first agreed that the cyst "wasn't anything to worry about".

After further consideration, though, and a little Gisi persuasion, it was decided Mary Jo would undergo surgery. In that procedure, both ovaries were removed, and she was told they looked fine. Nothing suspicious had been detected.

When the pathology results came in, her doctors consulted with her and said, "It's a good thing you were persistent."

A rare type of cancer called psammo carcinoma was found in both ovaries.

"Only about 1,000 cases of psammo carcinoma have been diagnosed," Mary Jo explains.

A second surgery was performed in November 2007 to remove lymph nodes and any other areas that may have been affected from the original cancer site. Following the surgery, Mary Jo followed in suit with her parents and sister and was administered chemotherapy for a four-month period.

"I had the support of not only a wonderful husband and two sons, but of the school community in which I taught as well and my church family," she says.

For the three women, chemotherapy has been tolerated similarly. None will convey that the period was a rough one. All lost their hair, but none considered that to be a devastating blow. Each considers the others to have gone through a worse treatment and recovery than their own. That is how the Gisi family exudes their faith and their love for one another. Each takes care of the other and being called upon to do so is an honor, not a duty at all.

The family with so many trials and equal numbers of triumphs draws consistently from their deep-seated faith.

"It's difficult to explain," says Cathy, "the strength we each have found in prayer."

For the past three years, the Gisi names have appeared on countless prayer lists from Dexter to St. Louis and then to Virginia and further. The family finds it a humbling experience to know that so many prayers are offered daily in their name.

"I met a woman who had never met my family," Cathy recalls, "and yet she prayed for my family by name each day. I was so touched to know that people we will likely never meet are praying for us on a regular basis."

The Gisi family, which now includes five supportive grandchildren, says that those prayers are what has sustained the faith-filled group throughout their challenges with cancer. And they credit, of course, the expertise of physicians, as well as the advanced technology that comes as a result of events like the upcoming Relay for Life on July 30-31. With all those forces working at their side, the Charles Gisi family is quick to say they consider themselves "blessed indeed".