The Breast Cancer Kept Coming Back….Until it Didn’t

This survivor’s (in the middle) story is scary. The breast cancer just kept coming back and coming back and coming back….until it stopped coming back….Her story is much more harrowing that her matter of fact style shows. Something about surviving that quiets the fearful voices inside? Through it all, she remained amazingly positive.

 

IN HER OWN WORDS: I was diagnosed with breast cancer in February of 2001,  I was only 33 years old.  I had an immediate lumpectomy followed by chemotherapy in the summer of the same year. I subsequently decided to have a mastectomy on my right breast in November and reconstruction in the beginning of 2002. During reconstruction a cancer was found on my chest wall. This was removed and then more treatment.

I thought all was well until my cancer returned in chest wall again, now above my right breast in February of 2006. After radiation from March through May, the cancer spread to my lungs.  I was scared but hopeful.  A lung wedge was followed by a full year of chemo which did not put me into remission.

Then my gynecologist had what turned out to be a life saving idea. She suggested I have my ovaries removed and I did.  Miraculously, subsequent tests revealed that the cancer disappeared.  I am now 49 years old and have been cancer free for 10 years.  I am thoroughly enjoying my life, my new marriage, and especially my 9 month old grandson, Lawrence.