Michelle Batt and
Nicole, fighting breast cancer
The
courage to be told you may die, to fight cancer, to submit to aggressive
therapies, and multiple surgeries and reconstructions, to endure the terror and
the fear that your efforts may fail, to risk death therefore, always uncertain the
procedures will work, to live, and to tell others what you’ve learned, to warn
them, so that they may avoid cancer and live, that’s a warrior and, as it’s
about breast cancer, it’s about women warriors.
Michelle
Batt is such a warrior. Her story is not
for the weak of heart. But it signifies
one of two significant ways women may be at risk of breast cancer. She couldn’t have done anything to avoid her
risk. She was born with a genetic
mutation that, after many replications, dividing without normal controls, can
prompt an abnormal growth, a tumor – and it may be malignant, meaning
cancerous. There is a genetic blood test
to detect the mutation’s presence but many don’t know to take the test. Michelle jokes, “I’m a mutant – and I know
it.”
There are two kinds of
inherited harmful mutations, the BRCA1 gene or BRCA2 gene. A woman who has either gene has an 85%
lifetime risk as compared to 12% for the average woman of developing breast
cancer, and about a 50-50 chance of ovarian cancer. Worse, it strikes women in their late 30s and
40s – if they have this mutated gene.
Michelle had the BRCA2 gene.
If you have this gene,
Michelle says, you have to review the implications up and down your family tree
– as a precaution.
Michelle’s father,
Edward, and sister, Rose, both had cancers, her father lung cancer, and her
sister breast cancer. “That’s how it
started,” Michelle said, “each raced the other to have their surgeries first.”
“They had missed the
cancer on Rose’s mammogram,” Michelle said, “Rose found it herself, at 45, then
found she had cancer in both breasts, and she caught it late.”
After the surgery, “we
were high-fiving” but, Michelle said, “3 months later for my sister and 5
months after my father’s surgery, both had metastasized cancers.”
“We went to get genetic
testing, my sister Rose and I,” Michelle said, “and found she carried the BRCA2
mutation, and I had my test. I had it
too. It didn’t take me long to have the
surgery. It was more a matter of fear – running toward it.”
She lost her father and
sister but has survived herself because of them.
Michelle said, “I’m so
glad that Angelina Jolie has spoken out about her BRACA1 mutation, it’s made a
big difference for the better; it’s the same decision I had to make.“ (The
Jolie op-ed appeared in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/opinion/my-medical-choice.html?_r=0
)
Nicole has another side
of the breast cancer story. (Nicole
preferred some privacy, so we have withheld her family name and any picture of
her face). Nicole had no mutation in her
family history. Nicole was a
“workaholic, stressed at work,” she said, and her supervisor kept after her to
see her doctor. “My boss made me go,”
said Nicole. “It was good I went. I was
39 at the time when diagnosed with breast cancer, on May 1st, of this
year. My gynecologist found the lump in
a normal exam. That’s why you should go
regularly. My doctor said, if I had gone
6 months later, we’d be having a different conversation.”
Both Michelle and
Nicole emphasized that younger women with denser breast tissue may, for that
reason, conceal the malignant growths they may have. Nicole said, “3-D mammograms show what 2-D
mammograms miss. So we encourage woman of
all ages to make these visits and to pay the extra or get the grant monies that
will pay for a 3-D. RIA Associates will
discount a 3-D mammogram for the price of a 2-D mammogram to help fight this
disease (http://www.riassociates.com/files/Tomosynthesis.pdf
).
“In my case,” Nicole
said, “they found the growth on the 3-D mammogram when it hadn’t been noticed
on the other tests.”
At the end, Nicole will
have had 6 surgeries. “The worst of it,” Nicole said, “was the chemotherapy,
it’s like the worst flu you could have lasting a week and, just when you begin
to recover, you go back for more chemo.”
As for the best, “it’s
having other women hear my story,” said Nicole, “having them taking measures to
protect themselves, women who hadn’t gone in, making appointments, taking 3-D
mammograms, and getting genetic tests.”
Nicole said, “supervisors
should do what mine did, they allowed others in my office to volunteer their sick
time to my account, from this past May through December. My husband took off from work to help me
through my long bouts with chemotherapy, and he joked how he expected I’d
choose Pam Anderson boobs as my replacement.”
Nicole is going to have
a double mastectomy and plastic surgery early next year. “I’m taking to the hospital,” Nicole said, “a
t-shirt that I’m wearing on the way out of the hospital that says, ‘Yes, they’re
fake; my real ones tried to kill me.’”
Michelle works with
“Facing Our Risk of Cancer,” and they reach out into the community to help (www.facingourrisk.org ). “That’s what I do now,” Michelle said, “try
to help others.”
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