Four years ago she was fighting for
her life.
It all began when Stevens was at
home breastfeeding her infant daugh-
ter Violet and something didn’t feel
quite right. She had discovered a
lump in her breast.
The diagnosis was delivered to
Stevens on Feb. 17, 2013, one that
turned her world upside down. It was
that dreadful word — the “C” word.
To hear it in a diagnosis it is devastat-
ing.
“It’s hard to put into words,”
the 35-year-old mother of two small
children said about the diagnosis
of cancer. “It’s like the world stops.
Time stops. You’re kind of paralyzed
by fear. I’ll be honest.”
Tests revealed the cancer to be a
very aggressive type.
“Amanda’s case was complex
for several reasons,” said Dr.
Robyn Young, a breast cancer
specialist with The Center for Cancer
& Blood Disorders in Weatherford
and Fort Worth.
“Her tumor was large, involved
lymph nodes, and was confirmed as
triple-negative breast cancer, a fast-
moving and relatively rare type of
cancer. All these factors meant she
needed chemotherapy before surgery.
Usually a patient has surgery first, but
not in this case.”
The news worsened. Stevens
tested positive for the BRCA-1 breast
cancer gene mutation. Talk about
“double whammy!” This is the type
of cancer that actress Angelina Jolie
battled so publicly. The identification
of the gene basically increased the
chances cancer would show up in
Amanda’s unaffected breast to 50-80
percent, according to Dr. Young.
Her risk for ovarian cancer also
soared.
So in