WELLNESS & WELL-BEING
Breast Cancer Didn’t Win,
I Did
B y Va l e d a K e y s
A
bout one in eight women in the United States will
be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime,
according to current statistics. I happen to be
one of those women.
My breast cancer journey really began at age
27, when I was told by a nurse practitioner after my annual exam
to start getting a yearly mammogram due to my family history.
My mother had breast cancer at the early age of 36, and again,
at 56. I can honestly say I was accountable every year for my
mammograms after that conversation. At the age of 37, I was
diagnosed with breast cancer. I called it an “interruption of life.”
I was so busy trying to make sure my life was in order. At
the time, I had been married for seven years, with two sons, ages 12 and
19, I was going to school to complete my degree as a registered nurse,
and working a full-time job – and that was enough.
I had a lumpectomy performed right before our son turned 13. I wanted
to make sure I would be able to celebrate his birthday because birthdays are
blessings. Soon after surgery and his birthday, I went into my next treatment
- radiation therapy. It lasted six weeks, every day, except for the weekend. The
weekends were rest days, a vital part of dealing with breast cancer.
My breast surgeon requested genetic testing, and the result was
positive for BRCA2, which means a person has inherited a known
harmful mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene, and therefore, has an
increased risk of developing breast, cervical and ovarian cancer. There
were many decisions that needed to be made after those results.
One of the decisions was to start taking a drug called Tamoxifen to
help prevent breast cancer from returning or appearing in the opposite
October is breast cancer awareness month!
HOW WILL YOU TAKE CARE OF YOUR GIRLS (BREASTS)?
1. Know your family history.
2. Women, 40 and older: Make (and keep) your
mammogram appointment.
3. Limit your alcohol consumption.
4. Maintain ideal weight.
5. Don’t ignore anything that looks or feels abnormal.
6. Participate in awareness events.
7. Love yourself by taking care of yourself.
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GAZELLE
breast. The other treatment option that I agreed on with my
medical team was the close-observation approach. This meant
mammograms every six months and MRIs.
After radiation, my immune system was compromised. A
shingles rash developed on my left upper forehead, which was
a very rare spot for it to occur, according to the physicians. My
doctor told me I could become blind, and even be hospitalized
if it started to spread. But thank God, it didn’t spread. Shingles
is an acute, painful inflammation of the nerve ganglia, with a
skin eruption often forming a girdle around the middle of the
body. It is caused by the same virus as chicken pox.
I had mammograms every six months after the BRCA2
gene mutation results, and after one year and five days, I was diagnosed
again with breast cancer - ductal carcinoma in situ, a non-invasive
cancer, where abnormal cells have been found in the lining of the milk
duct