Six years ago, my life changed in a way I never thought possible. I was no stranger to cancer: my dad had passed away from it when I was two, my aunt had passed away from breast cancer when I was twenty-two, and my mom had breast cancer when I was thirty-one.
While doing a self-breast examination I discovered a lump in my left breast. Since my aunt’s diagnosis when I was fifteen, I was very diligent about doing these and had found lumps before which always turned out to be cysts and were drained. I was told that I was fibrocystic so I wasn’t terribly worried but decided to follow up and make an appointment with my family doctor. I went for my mammogram and ultrasound and then a few weeks later went for a core biopsy.
On April 6, 2007, at age thirty-five, I was told I had breast cancer. The rest of the day is pretty much a blur, but one thing in my mind was certain—I was certain I was going to beat this! I was given literature on the options, whether to have a mastectomy or lumpectomy with radiation. After discussing the options with my doctor, surgeon, and my husband, I opted to have the lumpectomy with radiation.
After my surgery, which was successful in removing the tumour and clearing the margins, I had an appointment with my oncologist. My oncologist gave me a great deal of information to digest but first and foremost was that I required chemotherapy treatment due to the type of cancer I had. My tumour was what they called “triple negative” meaning it was estrogen negative, progesterone negative, and HER2 negative and would not respond to hormone therapy treatment. She also suggested that I be tested for something called the BRCA gene.
Chemotherapy was as bad as they say: the nausea, the mouth sores, the muscle pain and of course, the hair loss. After my second treatment, I developed a rather serious staph infection in the PICC line they had inserted. I was in the hospital for two weeks while they treated me with antibiotics and ran tests to ensure the infection hadn’t reached any vital organs. Fortunately, after that the rest of my chemo treatments went pretty smoothly. I finished chemo in November of 2007 and began radiation treatments in January of 2008.
All my treatments were complete by the beginning of February 2008, so after discussing it with my husband and genetic counsellor, I decided to be tested for the BRCA gene. I was called in September to go in and see the genetic counsellor and specialist to discuss my results. I tested positive for the BRCA1 gene.
Everyone has a BRCA gene which protects our bodies from breast cancer. Testing positive for the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene means that there is a mutation in that BRCA gene and you are actually at a higher risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer. For me, the BRCA1 mutation means I had a 60% chance of getting breast cancer, coupled with the increase risk of already having had it, and up to an 80% chance of getting ovarian cancer. To put this in perspective, the general population female has a 13% risk of getting breast cancer in her lifetime and a 1.5% chance of getting ovarian cancer in her lifetime.
The specialist also told me two very important things: 1) it was recommended that I have my breasts and ovaries removed to lower the risk of getting breast cancer again and ovarian cancer, and 2) I would not likely ever be able to conceive a child on my own.
Two days later I found out I was pregnant. On July 1, 2009 at 10:34pm my healthy baby girl and my miracle, Sydney Hope was born!
When she was five-months-old, I went for my regular mammogram and received a call that something had shown up. Fortunately it turned out to be nothing but scar tissue but at that moment, as the memories of the first diagnosis came rushing back to me, the fear of my daughter growing up without me looming in the back of my mind, I knew it was time to take matters into my own hands. I started meeting with a plastic surgeon and a breast surgeon to discuss my options, because at the age of thirty-nine, I was not going to live without breasts and dying at the hands of breast cancer was not an option.
Finally, in April of 2011, after a second scare, I made the decision to set a date to have my breasts removed and reconstructed. It was the most emotional decision I have ever made in my life. I know that when people look at women, breasts are seen as a big part of what makes us feminine. I was nervous about the stigmatism that goes along with “fake” breasts, wondered what they would feel like, and wondered how they would feel to my husband. But at the end of the day, I knew this was the right decision for me and my family. Most importantly, I knew that I had to set a positive example for my daughter, who also has a 50/50 chance of having this same gene.
On September 28, 2011, I had the six-hour surgery in which the doctors removed as much breast tissue as they could, inserted a saline expander implant on the right side and on the left used the latissimus flap procedure (taking muscle from the back to help create the breast in the front to help with the healing due to the damage caused by radiation) along with a saline implant. Things went along fine for the first few weeks, until I developed an infection around the left implant. I was told that once there is an infection around an implant, you can only control it and the only way to completely get rid of it was to remove the implant. I remained on intravenous antibiotics for three months and the doctor continued with the fill process of the implants to try to obtain the size we desired. However, due to the damage caused by the infection, the left implant broke down and collapsed creating what we jokingly and seriously called a “uni-boob."
In February of 2012, I had the surgery to replace the left implant and then went on to have the implants filled. We also made the decision that since I was already off on sick leave and required one more surgery for my breasts, I would go ahead and have my ovaries removed at the end of May 2012. Needless to say it was a very hot summer in more ways than one for me.
So here we are today, I am now forty-one-years-old, I have an amazing, supportive husband, a beautiful, three-year-old daughter, and fake boobs.
It has been a bit of a challenge getting used to my new body, the way it looks, the way it feels and the way I feel about it. I received a message on Twitter from Christina Applegate, who shares the same gene and had the same surgery. She said, "Make sure you have help get used to the change. It is an everyday adjustment to seeing your body differently."
Looking back on this journey, I have no regrets. Infertility took me to the darkest places I have ever been and once I realized what I was missing out on, I began living and laughing again. Cancer has taught me that things really do happen for a reason, a saying I could never fully fathom before. They have both taught me that in life you can never, ever give up hope.
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