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Your spring breast cancer advocacy roundup from Seattle

1 Apr

spring flowersIt’s been a busy few months in Cancer Advocacy Land and it’s going to get even busier as we head full on into spring. I’ll be lending my patient voice to a couple of Seattle conferences on cancer care cost, health equity/health disparities and policy in late April and early May. And my BC buddy Terry Arnold of the IBC Network is coming up from Texas to talk about inflammatory breast cancer at Cancer Pathways (formerly Gilda’s Club, Seattle) on April 19. As an oddball BC patient myself (diagnosed with ILC), I look forward to learning more about this subtype.

Speaking of BC subtypes, make sure you check out the great new lobular breast cancer website (here’s my Fred Hutch story on ILC). Invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) is the weird one where your cancer cells don’t have enough ‘glue’ to stick together so instead of a lump, they march through your tissues like creepy little ants. The upshot, lobular cells and ‘tumors’ grow more like a mesh or tree branch, which means in addition to not always making the standard lump, bump or “hard pea,” they’re hard to image. Mammograms can miss them; PET and CTs can miss them. Still a little unsure about MRI’s efficacy with ILC but would love to hear from radiologists/patient advocates on that point. ILC also pops up in some odd places when it metastasizes: your GI tract, your ovaries, the linings around your organs, even your eyeball area. It’s a freak.

But knowledge is power, right? Thanks to lobular buddy Leigh Pate’s efforts (and that of all the Lob Mob), this great new site offers resources and links and new clinical trials and much more information than I can fit into this “short-and-sweet” blog posts. Please go here: Lobular Breast Cancer Alliance, read up on the cancer, its metastatic spread pattern and how it differs from other ER+ BCs, and make sure your oncologist knows that you’re a special unicorn and needed to be treated as such. If you’re interested, there’s also info there on how you can join the Metastatic Breast Cancer Project and/or attend a lobular cancer research conference back in Boston this summer.

Good stuff is also happening with the Lymphedema Treatment Act, an “active bill” in the current Congress designed to help cancer patients who develop lymphedema after some or all of their lymph nodes are removed during cancer surgery. Breast Cancer patients are particularly vulnerable to this: full axillary lymph node dissection was standard of care for decades. In recent years, research has advised against this (thanks for your part in this, Gary Lyman!), so moving forward, breast cancer surgeons shouldn’t be harvesting healthy lymph nodes like ripe raspberries come summer.

This lymphedema legislation – which could still use your support! – will serve patients who’ve had their nodes taken and gone on to suffer swelling, pain, infection and other complications because their insurance wouldn’t pay for a compression sleeve and they couldn’t afford it to by it on their own. The bipartisan LTA, sponsored by Washington’s Rep. Dave Reichert; Senator Maria Cantwell (also of Washington), Senator Chuck Grassley, from Iowa, and many more, will do the following:

The Lymphedema Treatment Act (LTA) will improve coverage for the treatment of lymphedema from any cause by amending Medicare statute to allow for coverage of compression supplies. Although this legislation relates specifically to a change in Medicare law, it would set a precedent for Medicaid and private insurers to follow. 

Read more about the specific goals of the LTA here. Read my story on this common cancer surgery side effect here.

Science / advocacy quick hits: Went to the two-day Life Sciences Innovation Northwest Conference this last March 27-28 and heard about a bunch of cool new biotech startups, including one from Fred Hutch researcher VK Gadi (and others) that definitely warrants follow-up. SEngine Precision Medicine takes cancer cells from patients’ tumors or cancery fluid (think ascites), grows tiny little organoids with them, then tests out dozens (100s?) of drugs to see if any of them work. If they don’t work on the organoid and its particular mutations, then they don’t bother giving them to the patient and putting ‘em through all that rigmarole for nothing. If it does work on the organoid, then beautiful things begin to happen. I realize I’m being a bit of a breathless fan girl here but it’s a new and very targeted approach and I have a couple of (hundred) friends who could use a miracle. I’ll keep you posted. slide one - doublewhammiedAlso went to Portland mid-March for Komen Oregon and SW Washington’s Breast Cancer Issues conference. Was great to connect with some sisters to the south and hear about all the great health equity work that Komen Oregon is doing for people of color, for rural cancer patients and all the others who keep falling between the health care cracks. Was very honored that they asked me to share my story as the conference final speaker. Here’s a link to my talk (yes, I’m a hambone). Just doing what I can, while I can, to bring the information to the people. And kick cancer’s sorry ass, one bad joke at a time.

Thanks for the read, people. Happy Easter, April Fool’s (I blogged!) and love to you all.

Meet the #LobMob of breast cancer

18 Feb
lobular breast cancer patients

Illustration by Kimberly Carney / Fred Hutch News Service

Finally got a chance to write about lobular breast cancer, my particular flavor, and profile rock star patient advocate (and friend) Leigh Pate.

Leigh was diagnosed about the same time as me; she’s also a lobular gal and has already done a bit of advocacy around lymphedema, that really annoying swollen arm thing that breast cancer patients get when surgeons take out some or all of our lymph nodes.

Leigh and I met first over the Interwebs and later over cocktails at The Triple Door in downtown Seattle where we talked about lymphedema (or milk arm, as it used to be known). Because, you know, cancer patients know how to party.

After she recovered from treatment (and took a moment to breathe), Leigh sort of leaned into cancer research, as many of us do. She realized quickly that invasive lobular is lumped in (no pun intended) with invasive ductal and treated identically — mainly because lobular is almost always estrogen receptor positive (ER+ in cancerspeak).

But lobular is a different animal entirely, down to its tiny biological bits. And it’s a hard one to catch early, because it doesn’t image as well as ductal. Particularly if you have dense breasts — that’s where that whole “doublewhammied” thing came from. That and the fact I had two tumors in both breasts. Another weird lobular trait: many women have tumors in both breasts and/or have more than one tumor per breast.

There are other differences. Lobular spreads to oddball places like the GI tract when it metastasizes. The cells travel single file, kind of like deadly little tree branches. This weird growth pattern means it doesn’t always make a lump (mine was a “tuck” that pulled from inside and crumpled in when I raised my left arm).

But again, the cancer has been cast as “just like ductal” for a long time. So not everybody knows these quirky differences. Not even patients or PCPs or sometimes not even oncologists. Women come in with weird abdominal symptoms and they’re told they have irritable bowel syndrome (because hey, don’t ALL women have IBS?). But no, they have stage 4 lobular cancer.

leigh pate - lob mob

Leigh Pate, lobular breast cancer patient/advocate. Photo by Robert Hood / Fred Hutch News Service

Anyway, tired of the status quo and encouraged by an uptick in scientific interest, Leigh and a bunch of her BC buddies (the #lobmob), put together the Lobular Breast Cancer Alliance to raise its profile — and eventually, they hope, funds for more research. The timing is perfect because there are some cool new  lobular studies being done right now (at Fred Hutch and elsewhere) and we can all help get the word out.

You can read my full story here, which includes some intriguing history regarding combined hormone therapy (HRT increases the risk of lobular, not ductal — I did not know this!). You can also see where scientists are looking, genetically, hormonally and otherwise, in order to shut this shitshow down.

As always, thanks for the read. Enjoy your day, peeps!

Oversharing is caring

11 Aug

showandtellI was standing in line to check in at the plastic surgeon’s last week when a woman tapped me on the shoulder.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Did you write about your breast reconstruction for the University of Washington alumni magazine?”

I nodded and introduced myself and the two of us talked “shop” for a few minutes. She was fresh out of chemo and going in to consult with a plastic surgeon about recon before her double mastectomy. I was heading in to schedule my second round of fat transfer surgery but, as usual, was happy to discuss my chest with another BC buddy (and her husband, as it turned out).

I never talked about my boobs that much until I got breast cancer. Ironic, I know, since the creepy crab monster pretty much stole my boobs. What’s there to talk about, right? But since I was diagnosed, had a double mastectomy, stumbled through treatment and most recently, started down the path toward reconstruction, it seems like all I do is blather on and on about my girls.

And now, god help me, I’m not just talking about them – or writing about them – I’m baring my chest, and my soul, in new and very public ways.

Three weeks ago, I went in to see my oncologist for a quarterly check-up (blood work all came back fine, by the way) and afterward, went up to the surgeon’s office where I stripped down to show her and her colleagues the results of my first fat grafting surgery. It’s a new process and not that many doctors — or patients, for that matter — are familiar with it. I let them poke and prod and ask all kinds of questions about the science experiment I’m conducting on my chest. Not because I’m some kind of exhibitionist but because I’ve always felt knowledge is power and anything that I can do to help educate and inform other BC survivors and/or the people who treat them is worthwhile. 

I have to admit, though, the old me sort of watched in horror as one white coat after another moved in for a closer look at what I’ve come to call my “foundation” (after one round of Brava/fat transfer, I sort of look like a 10-year-old girl entering puberty). Before cancer, I would never have been so blasé about showing my boobs to a room full of strangers. Well, not unless it was Mardi Gras and I’d had more than one martini (kidding!). But after living with breast cancer for 2.5 years, I’ve grown accustomed to opening my gown to whomever happens to wander into the exam room. One of these days, I’m going to scare the bejesus out the janitor, I’m sure.

I’m not just showing off my girls in person, though. I’m also talking about them — on TV, no less. Last month, I was asked to appear on a Seattle talk show called NewDay NW, to chat about my madcap cancer adventure (still can’t use the word “journey”) with Justine Avery Sands, a 32-year-old BRCA gal, who opted for a prophylactic double mastectomy with immediate recon (otherwise known as “The Jolie”). I managed to get through the 8-minute segment without throwing up, fainting or dropping an f-bomb (TV still makes me nervous).

More importantly, I was able to get across some crucial points regarding mammograms, dense breast tissue, the importance of self-exams, and, I hope, through my attitude and demeanor, convey to others – particularly newly diagnosed sisters — that a double mastectomy does not destroy your sense of humor or your strength or your soul or your lust for life. Or your lust for anything, for that matter. Here’s a link for those interested in watching.

The intersection of cancer and self. August 2013.

The intersection of cancer and self. August 2013.

These games of show-and-tell have become part of my new normal. But sometimes I do wonder if I’m mentally ill for being so open and upfront about all my BC stuff. It certainly hasn’t done much for my dating life. I’ve had more than one enthusiastic suitor flee after discovering my high cancer profile (Google me and you’ll see what I mean). Whether they’re turned off by the cancer itself, by pics of me mid-treatment, or by my willingness to discuss the “C-word” publicly (without whispering or anything), I’ll never know.

I do know, though, that a year ago, I wasn’t able to have a conversation about my mastectomy with doctors or family members or friends without tearing up. These days, I’m talking – and even making jokes – about the whole ordeal on TV, in print and in line at the plastic surgeon’s.

I never set out to become the woman who talks about her boobs – or lack thereof — all the time. But I think I’ve been able to help others by serving up a few straightforward answers and insights (along with a healthy slice of attitude). As I mentioned in the interview, for me, sharing is caring. And also, apparently, therapeutic.

So what about you? Are you open about your breast cancer with everyone – even strangers — and if so, has it been a positive or negative (or both)? Or are you more stealth about your diagnosis and treatment? Do you think being open about BC helps you process it? Or is it just time, itself, that helps heal those wounds? Would love your thoughts. And as always, appreciate the read.

Did your mammogram catch your breast cancer?

10 May

So I went to a boob show last night, otherwise known as the Breast Reconstruction Group at Seattle’s Polyclinic.

I’ve been once before and found it a great place to learn about all the different types of reconstruction out there — and trust me there’s a lot — as well as talk to women who are going through the various stages of breast cancer school. (Hey, if they can call it a journey, I can call it a school.) 

Some of the women were newly diagnosed and surgery-bound, asking questions about immediate reconstruction, just as I had when I went to my first BRG right after my diagnosis last year. Others were there to show off their newly reconstructed breasts so the freshmen and post-treatment/pre-reconstruction sophomores and juniors could see what kind of results they might expect from tissue expanders and implants or tram flaps or lat flaps or what have you.

While it’s always interesting to hear about reconstruction (especially now that I’ve cleared the six month post-rads mark and can actually start thinking about getting new girls), hearing each woman’s cancer story is even more riveting — and heartrending. Some of them had had more than their share of experience with the disease. They’d lost mothers (or even fathers) to breast cancer. Others were hit by a diagnosis like a shovel upside the head.

What struck me last night — and this seems to happen every time I hang with a group of BC survivors — was the number of women who didn’t find their cancer via an annual screening.

As some of you may know, I’m one of those women. My cancer didn’t present as a lump but as a small “tuck” just under the left nipple. After going to my ob/gyn (who assured me it was nothing but a cyst), I went on to get a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound. Just like all the other times I’d had a mammogram (including the one 12 months previous), mine came back clean as a whistle. No lumps, no bumps, no funny business at all. But when they took me in for the ultrasound, it was a much different story. I had four masses — two on each side.

Here’s the problem: this is a story I’ve heard again and again from breast cancer survivors. Somebody will go in for their annual mammogram and walk out with a clean bill of health. Then three or six or nine months later, they’re diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, an aggressive cancer that could have — should have — been caught much earlier. Worse yet are the women who die because they put all their faith in a clear mammogram, even though one family member after another has been hit with this wretched disease. 

After my diagnosis, I immediately began lobbying my four sisters to go in and get checked out, pushing them to get their doctors prescribe ultrasounds as well as mammograms. My gut told me that the five of us share more than just a dark sense of humor and a penchant for antiques. I have dense breast tissue — which is why the mamm didn’t reveal the masses lurking in my breasts. I’m guessing my sisters are every bit as dense as me (so to speak).

Unfortunately, thanks to the way things are set up (with the insurance companies, with the medical providers, with the gods, etc.), you can’t simply request an ultrasound in lieu of — or in addition to — a mamm. Not even if you pay for it yourself. One after another, my sisters were told they could get mammograms, but unless there was something wrong with their breasts (or they had tested positive for the BRCA gene mutation), ultrasounds were not an option for them. Even though their sister had just been diagnosed with BC.

This kind of crap drives me crazy, especially as I read stories about the push to get moms to go in for mammograms as a way to celebrate Mother’s Day. Mamms are all well and good for some women, but they don’t seem to do squat for those of us with dense breast tissue. And there are a lot of us out there with this stuff. In fact, according to AreYouDense.org, a website devoted to exposing what it calls “the best kept secret,” two thirds of pre-menopausal and one quarter of post-menopausal women are saddled with dense breasts. Boobs that are full of connective tissue that appears white on a mammogram — same as a tumor — making it very difficult to see who does and who doesn’t have cancer.

And yet, millions of women consider their annual mammograms the end-all, be-all when it comes to their breast health. They trust mamms and mamms alone to tell them whether they have breast cancer.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like those suckers can be trusted. Not on their own, anyway.

I’m not anti-mammogram. I know of at least one person who found their cancer during their annual screening so they absolutely do work for some women. I just don’t know how many. Or how often. Or how much the technician or radiologist has to do with the final results. Nor do I know why women aren’t automatically offered a choice of a mammogram or ultrasound (or both) when it comes to their annual screening. Especially when some states are more than happy to force a woman to have an ultrasound — at least a transvaginal one — if they’re thinking about terminating a pregnancy.

Last night at the Breast Reconstruction Group, a couple of the women talked about how confusing the world of breast cancer can be. “You have this choice, you have that choice,” one said. “I just wish there weren’t so many choices, so many decisions.” I understand exactly what she’s talking about. It’s confusing and upsetting and mind-numbingly horrific to have to sort through all the options one by one, especially as you get deeper and deeper into surgery, treatment and, finally, reconstruction.

Here’s my thought, though (and no doubt it’s a naive one). If women had a few more choices up front, maybe there would be fewer choices to be made down the line. If women were routinely told about their dense breast tissue and routinely allowed to have whatever type of screening they needed — or their bodies necessitated — maybe there would be fewer late stage cancers. Fewer mastectomies. Fewer rounds of chemo. Fewer deaths. And yes, fewer hissy fits pounded out by angry boobless wonders like me.  

So I’m curious, dear readers. Did any of you discover your breast cancer via your annual mammogram? Or did you discover it through self-exam? Or via MRI or ultrasound or a physical exam? Does anybody know why women — especially those with dense breast tissue — can’t automatically get an ultrasound and have it covered by insurance? Inquiring minds want to know.

It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to

15 Apr

So I had quite the party last night. There was music, there was wine and there was me, curled up on the couch with a heating pad, an old timey quilt and an ever-diminishing box of chocolate cookies. Yes, as you’ve probably guessed, I was the guest of honor at a good old-fashioned pity party last night, brought to you (or me, rather) by Living with Cancer and My Bad Attitude Productions.  

I’m still not sure what exactly happened or why it decided to happen on what must have been the most gorgeously vibrant spring day in Seattle history. I woke feeling a little under the weather, with fever, chills and a bit of a sore throat and for some reason couldn’t convince myself that going out for a run would be the thing to lift my spirits and clear my head. Instead, I pointedly ignored my running shoes (and the running laptop) and started watching Sex and the City (the movie), which didn’t exactly help my mood. (How could Big do that to Carrie? Why is Carrie reacting like such a dork? And what the hell is with that bird on her head?)

Before I knew it, morning had blended into early afternoon, which then coasted slowly towards late afternoon. And I still hadn’t left the house. I’m not even sure I ate anything, although I did take my medication: the anti-anxiety pill, the tamoxifen, the two tabs of Vitamin D and one tab of Vitamin B12, all chased down by a fish oil tab the size of my little finger. I take all of this crap every day (and more on days when I have bad chest pain or a migraine or can’t sleep), although the only pill that really counts is the tamoxifen, which acts like a hawk-eyed chaperone at a seventh grade dance, perpetually shouldering its way between those two old lovebirds — estrogen and cancer — so they can’t hook up and produce a slew of baby tumors.

And that, I believe, is what was … or is … at the heart of my funk (truth be told, I haven’t quite kicked it yet).

Not that I have any reason to be in a funk. Last Wednesday, I had a stellar one-year follow-up with my breast cancer surgeon, who told me that my left side had healed so well she couldn’t even tell that I’d had radiation there. Plus I’m working as much as I was pre-diagnosis; I just got back from a trip to Arizona and Texas; and spring has finally sprung in Seattle, chasing the constant drizzle and gray away with glorious sunshine and days that stretch on forever (or at least until 8 p.m.).

And yet yesterday (and even Wednesday while talking to my doc), all I could think about was the dreaded R-word: recurrence.

Obviously, with no more “mamm” to gram, that particular method of breast cancer screening is off the table. And in the year since my surgery, I haven’t received an ultrasound or MRI to see if any new tumors have sprouted in my chest. I also haven’t received  any assurances or guarantees that I’m completely out the woods and that I’ll never again have to climb onto the bad carnival ride that is cancer treatment. Instead, I’ve been living in Limbo Land, where ever ache and pain is ripe for a new kind of dark, desperate scrutiny.

My BC surgeon said that a physical examination — which she performed while we chatted about reconstruction, swing dancing and whether or not I could take up boxing — was the best way to determine if I was developing anything hinky in my chest. But what about all the other areas of my body? My liver, my lungs, my bones, my brain — all those places where breast cancer likes to pop up and wreak havoc like a bitter, inebriated ex-boyfriend at your first major book launch.

That’s where things get a little muzzy. According to my oncologist — who’s gone over my recurrence rates with me on more than one occasion — I need to tell her if I start “feeling bad” or suddenly develop a weird persistent pain. Or, I imagine, I end up with a broken rib after getting a hug or a have a seizure while grocery shopping.

Do fever and chills and a sore throat fit within the “feeling bad” category, I wondered yesterday, watching bright sunshine blur into gray dusk. (Or was the fever not a symptom of a cold at all, but one of those infamous hot flashes I was told I’d get as tamoxifen hip-checks me into menopause?) And while we’re on the topic of hinky things developing, what about that sore spot under what used to be my left breast. Was that a tumor starting to sprout or had I knocked myself with the vacuum cleaner handle yet again?

Oh the places you go when you’ve had cancer.

And the things you say. Friday night over drinks with a girlfriend, I casually mentioned that I knew I wasn’t going to live all that long.

“Once you have cancer, you tend to get it again,” I told her, sipping my martini and grazing on a goat cheese, mint and bacon-sprinkled bruschetta. (Might as well live it up, since I’m going to die in ten minutes, ten days, ten years or whatever, right?)

“I’m feeling really blue,” I texted another buddy last night while cancelling plans. “I don’t want to die young and I know I’m going to now.”

Who does that? Who dumps that kind of crap into the laps of their friends? Certainly not me, unless I’m in the throes of a deep emotional funk. Which may or may not be something I should report to my oncologist (Hmmm … I’m normally so upbeat. Perhaps my foul mood is symptomatic of a brain tumor?).

It’s probably just the cold (or allergies) taking me to this dark place. Or the spate of friends and former neighbors who’ve recently lost (or are in the process of losing) a parent, grandparent, spouse or beloved pet. Maybe it’s the one-year anniversary of my double mastectomy, which looms on the horizon like a tax deadline. Or hey, maybe it’s the frigging tax deadline itself.

Whatever the case, I’m blue because I hate not knowing what the hell is going on with my body and knowing that I’ll never really know as long as I live, which I hope will be a long, long time, but chances are it won’t because of this crappy disease.  I’m blue because I’m a bit of a control freak and cancer is not something you can control. Or predict. Or prevent, no matter how much sauteed kale you consume (and trust me, I’m consuming a lot these days). I’m blue because recurrence happens; it’s happened to friends and family members and to some of my cancer buddies on Twitter and while some of these people have been able to stay on top of the disease, it’s not always possible to kick cancer to the curb once it starts “traveling from organ to organ like a gypsy caravan,” in the words of the late, great Dave Hodgson.

I’m blue because it’s gorgeous out and I should be out there celebrating the sun and the spring weather and the life I have while I have it, but instead I’m moping around the apartment “giving in to myself,” as my mother used to say. I’m blue because I’m usually the one trying to cheer other people up when they confess these kinds of dark thoughts and for some reason, I’m not quite able to do that for myself.

I’m blue because I’m angry and scared and don’t feel well and because I have to pay a bunch of money in taxes and I gained like four pounds while visiting my sister in Texas. I’m blue because I don’t have a Mr. Big or a body (or budget) like Sarah Jessica Parker and because despite having cancer, I’m just as shallow and self-absorbed as I ever was.

Oddly enough, though, now that I’ve gotten all this crap off my chest, I actually feel a little better. Thanks for the ear, folks and for stopping by my little pity party, which as of this moment, is officially closing down. Time to go run in the sun. Time to stop whining and live.