RIP Patty Jennings

The AP is reporting the Patty Jennings, the wife of Senate President Pro Tem Tim Jennings, has died at 53 after battling cancer.

I found this story I wrote for the Albuquerque Tribune in January of 2006, about Patty's battle and about bills that session that dealt with cancer screening. It's hard to tell whether those measures became part of that year's budget or not, but lawmakers this year are considering at least one measure for cancer screening, a topic that always merits attention.

Low-income cancer screening sought

SANTA FE — Patty Jennings did everything she was supposed to. She got the mammograms, sometimes as frequently as every six months, and the regular checkups. After she thought she had pulled a muscle in her right breast from helping her daughter move in September 2004, she waited a week, then saw her doctor. "Something didn't feel right," she said.

It wasn't. After nearly three months of tests, Jennings got the news she had breast cancer.

The executive director of the New Mexico Medical Insurance Pool, Jennings could afford good treatment.

But many women can't. And, Jennings , who is married to Roswell Democrat Sen. Tim Jennings, wants low-income women to get screened for breast cancer.

Tim Jennings is carrying a measure (SB 13) that would do just that. He believes it would save women's lives, not to mention health care costs.

"It does save, if there's no surgery, if they can catch it early," he said. 

Patty Jennings certainly tried to catch whatever ailed her mysteriously that fall. So she got a mammogram, a month ahead of her next regularly scheduled one. Nothing showed up, but something still felt wrong. An ultrasound came next, with no answer. She repeated those tests, and then got an MRI. It wasn't until she got that last technical and expensive test that cancer was diagnosed. "It showed up pretty much everywhere," she said.

The couple got the news as they were driving outside their town that Christmas Eve.

"It was a real surprise. I was 49. It's more and more common, but certainly not something to be afraid of. If it's found early, it's treatable," she said.

Tim Jennings ' measure would allocate $300,000 to the state Department of Health for the Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program.

Rep. Rhonda King, a Stanley Democrat, is carrying a companion measure (HB 204) in the House.

The bill isn't the first related to breast cancer that Jennings , a rancher, has introduced. In the 1980s, he sponsored legislation that requires medical insurance companies to cover mammograms. It was one of probably hundreds of bills he's sponsored since he took office in 1979. But the issue hit home when his wife was given the diagnosis.

"It hits you on top of the head," he said. And, he said, mammograms are no guarantee against breast cancer. "I always thought they were foolproof," he said. "They weren't."

Update, 12:48 p.m.

Read Patty's obituary here.