Surviving Breast Cancer, Embracing Life

The following is an Editorial Resource from YourTotalHealth.

Courage, the Second Time Around

Linda Hall, 59
Years since diagnosis: 14

After her 19-year-old daughter found a lump in her breast, which thankfully turned out to be benign, Linda Hall began examining her own breasts. It was November 1994. The very first time she did, she found a lump in the left one, prompting her to go for a mammogram. She learned that she had stage II/III breast cancer, and it had spread to three lymph nodes. “I was totally surprised because no one on my mother’s side had ever had any kind of cancer, and I was considered at low risk because I exercise regularly and eat a good diet,” recalls Hall, now 59, a divorced mother of three grown children in Knoxville, Tennessee.

After having a modified radical mastectomy, followed by six months of chemotherapy and 33 radiation treatments, Hall thought breast cancer was behind her. But in November 2005, a routine mammogram on her right breast revealed two masses that were found to be malignant. “I was very surprised because it had been 11 years and I’d been seeing my oncologist regularly and getting good reports,” she says. “I had thought that if I made it past 10 years, I was free and clear. This time, the breast cancer had different characteristics—it was estrogen-receptor positive and HER-2-positive, whereas the first one had been triple negative—so my doctor classified it as a new cancer rather than a recurrence.”

A new cancer
The distinction provided little comfort because even a new cancer meant Hall faced another modified radical mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Eighteen lymph nodes were also affected, but a full-body PET scan showed that the cancer hadn’t spread anywhere else. The diagnosis did, however, lead the doctor to send Hall for genetic testing, which showed she carried a mutation in the BRCA2 gene.

“Because I did so well the first time, I just anticipated doing well this time,” she explains. “I thought, ‘Well, I beat it one time; I’ll beat it a second time.’ Generally, I have a real positive outlook and a strong support group through my family, my church, my friends and colleagues. And knowing that doctors have made so much progress with the treatments and had so much better success with women surviving breast cancer really helped me. I didn’t allow myself to dwell on any negative thoughts, and as much as I could, I kept exercising, which helped me continue to feel physically okay.” After the second treatment, she took a year of the monoclonal antibody trastuzumab (Herceptin) used to treat HER-2-positive breast cancer and now takes an aromatase inhibitor used to treat estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer to prevent a recurrence.

Counting the blessings
With both mastectomies, Hall had breast reconstruction performed right away. “That helped me deal with it psychologically—to wake up and still have something there on my chest,” she explains. “Now I have boobs that are the same size as each other, which wasn’t the case before.” There have been other hidden blessings, such as discovering how supportive her friends and family can be and realizing how strong she really is. “Having dealt with this,” Hall says, “now I feel like I could deal with most anything that happens to me.”

By: Stacey Colino

What's Next: A Funny Kind of Strength

• 10 Years Later
• An "Awful" Family History
• Why Spend Today Worrying?