Battling breast cancer
By JENN WIANT - jwiant@nwherald.com
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| Breast cancer survivor and fitness specialist Jean Weber demonstrates a recommended stretch Tuesday in the first installment of a six-part Cancer Wellness Workshop at Centegra Hospital - Woodstock. The workshop is geared to help breast cancer patients and survivors build whole-body health, strength and fitness. (Valerie Tobias photo) |
WOODSTOCK – Anita Juarez of Woodstock began doing self breast exams after attending a Breast Cancer Awareness Month event in October 2007. Not long after, she felt a lump. She had a doctor check it about two weeks later, had an ultrasound done, and was told that it was a cyst.
Three months later, in May 2008, the lima bean-sized lump had grown to the size of a kiwi. Doctors took another look and diagnosed Juarez with Stage IV breast cancer that had spread to her spine. She was 26.
Lauren Mangino, 31, of Lake in the Hills was breast-feeding her 2-month-old son when she felt an itch near her armpit and discovered a lump. Just seven months earlier, doctors had not seen anything unusual in her mammogram. But the lump turned out to be breast cancer.
"I was actually shocked because I always thought it was more of a disease for women in their 40s and 50s," Mangino said this week, just two days before her third chemotherapy treatment.
"It wasn't even on my radar."
One in eight American women who live to the age of 90 will get breast cancer in her lifetime. But those women are not all in their 60s and 70s, or even their 40s and 50s, when they are diagnosed. As Breast Cancer Awareness Month gets under way, Juarez and Mangino want young women to know that it is possible to get breast cancer in your 20s and 30s, even though most doctors don't recommend annual mammograms until age 40.
Taking population growth into account, the incidence of breast cancer has gone down in McHenry County since 2001 even though the total number of cases has increased slightly, according to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health and Centegra Health System.
About 840 women were diagnosed with breast cancer between 2001 and 2005 in the county, a rate of about 145 of every 100,000 women, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. The majority of women diagnosed with breast cancer at Centegra's Sage Cancer Center between 2003 and 2007 were in their 50s, but 49 were women between ages 19 and 39.
Mangino and Juarez, both under 40 and neither with a family history of breast cancer, advocate that all women, even those in their 20s and 30s, get screened regularly. But controversy has erupted in recent years over whether women should do self breast exams, which can lead to stress and unnecessary medical procedures if a woman finds a lump that turns out to be benign.
Dr. Ranjana Soorya, an internal medicine doctor at Mercy Crystal Lake Medical Center West, said she still recommends annual mammograms for all women 40 and older, and suggests that women check their breasts for lumps once a month beginning in their 20s.
"Yes, patients are more likely to find something that's 'nothing,' but it's a free thing to do at home," Soorya said.
She recommends that women who have at least two close relatives with breast cancer get mammograms before age 40 and talk to an oncologist or genetic counselor about being tested for mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, which can substantially increase a woman's risk of acquiring breast cancer.
Lynn Griesmaier, a registered nurse at Centegra Hospital – Woodstock, works with patients and their families from the time they have an abnormal mammogram through treatment and recovery. She organized a six-week cancer wellness group, made up mostly of younger breast cancer patients and survivors, that began this week. Breast cancer survivor and fitness specialist Jean Weber of McHenry leads the sessions about exercise, balance, healthy eating, massage and meditation.
At Tuesday's first session, the women shared their stories of diagnosis and treatment before Weber gave them guidelines for developing individual fitness plans. Even those undergoing chemotherapy appeared confident, healthy and stronger because of their cancer.
Juarez, the youngest in the group, was in the most dire situation of all the women in the room, but she seemed to take it all in stride. A recent PET scan had showed that six of the seven cancer lesions on her spine had disappeared, and the size of her breast tumor had shrunk dramatically since she started chemotherapy.
Juraez did not know how long she would have to continue chemotherapy. Instead, she and her doctor were taking it day by day. But already her thoughts were moving beyond herself to other women she hoped would learn from her situation.
"These young girls take for granted that they are young and don't get these tests done. But it's real," she said. "I'd like to see women take the initiative and say, 'I'm not going to be a statistic.' "
