As part of the breast cancer community, I’ve been blessed to hear so many stories of strength, perseverance, hope, struggle, survival, and courage. To me, those stories bring real awareness about this disease. The people I profile this month honor me in allowing me to write their story. Please join me in celebrating them and share their stories widely!
October 7, 2014
In the late 90s, LaDonna Coates lost her best friend, Brenda, to cervical cancer. Watching her friend suffer through the pain and trials of her disease reinforced an idea in LaDonna's mind; people don't survive cancer. They may go into remission, or feel better for awhile, but eventually the cancer wins. It took battling the disease herself before she realized just how wrong she'd been.
In the Spring of 2007, with a newborn son at home, LaDonna's husband, Todd, deployed to Iraq. During this deployment, LaDonna started feeling tired all the time, but her concerns were dismissed by doctors. Surely she was depressed, having been left to care for an infant while her husband was deployed overseas. But even after his return in the summer of 2008, she still felt tired. They moved to another army base early the next year, but the exhaustion never let up. Then, one Thursday evening in early May 2009, while watching TV, LaDonna went to scratch the skin on her breast and found a "huge lump." By the following Monday, she was meeting with her doctor, who scheduled a mammogram and ultrasound right away. The whirlwind of diagnosis followed. By the first of June, she'd received her diagnosis. It was Invasive Ductal Carcinoma and she had a 4.5cm tumor (about the size of an egg).
Knowing a mastectomy would be her only option if she chose to stay within the Army Hospital system, LaDonna sought other opinions at Emory University Cancer Center in Atlanta. In her mind, she was dying, but she sought treatment anyway because that is what her family wanted, and she knew from experience how hard cancer was on the caretakers, friends and families. Typically, a tumor of that size would indicate a mastectomy (removal of the breast) instead of a lumpectomy (removal of the tumor and affected tissue from the breast). But new research, data, and the right medical team led LaDonna down a different path. Along with her team of doctors, LaDonna decided they would do FEC chemo to try and shrink the tumor, and then remove the smaller tumor by lumpectomy, since the data suggested the recurrence rates for that approach were no higher than any other approach.Awareness Tidbit: The decision between having a mastectomy or a lumpectomy requires the consideration of many factors, and more often than not, the choice must be made quickly. It's important that every patient understands their options and makes an informed choice that's right for them!
After 6 rounds of FEC chemotherapy every 3 weeks, beginning in June 2009 and ending shortly after her 40th birthday in October, the only thing left for anyone to see in the scans was the marker from her biopsy. The chemo had more than shrunk the tumor. LaDonna's breast showed no evidence of disease! Comically, it puzzled the doctors and radiologists, who all crowded in her room at the teaching hospital to try and figure out where her tumor had gone (I'm picturing Where's Waldo?! Lol!)
LaDonna still had the lumpectomy in November, to remove the tissue around the marker. She chose to have a Plastic Surgeon close the wound and perform a breast reduction on the other breast with the same amount of tissue removed. The scars are hardly visible, she says. And, even though there were differing opinions on the course of treatment post-surgery, LaDonna chose to have radiation, just to make sure that they'd destroyed every last cancer cell there was.
LaDonna remembers the moment her doctor told her and Todd that the pathology (from the lumpectomy) was clear. She remembers thinking she should have been happy. Everyone else in the room was happy. LaDonna just felt lost and confused. It had finally dawned on her that surviving WAS an option. She told me, "I didn't know people actually did that." She'd let herself gain weight throughout her treatment. In her mind, she was dying anyway, so why should she care about her weight? It wasn't until her doctor at UNC, where she goes for her follow up care, told her she was cured, not in remission, but CURED, that it really sank in.
And while, yes, there are trials and tribulations as a result of medications and surgeries, LaDonna has lost the weight and the idea that cancer always wins. She wants others to understand that, like her and so many of the amazing men and women she's met along the way, people do REALLY survive!
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