Nancy

My name is Nancy Howard; in august 2007 my mother was diagnosed with stage III Breast Cancer and underwent a Mastectomy to her left Breast.
While visiting with her in the hospital I started having pain in my right breast. Later that night in the shower I notice I had several lumps in my right breast. I went to the doctor and was sent for a mammogram. After the mammogram showed I had a mass on my right breast, and then I have to
have a biopsy. When the result came back from the biopsy it confirmed that I had stage III Breast Cancer. I felt so numb inside. So I met with the team of Doctors GOD lined up for me. The Breast surgeon started off by saying the MRI showed eleven nodules in my right breast so they recommended that I have my breast removed. The tumor had traveled to the muscle in my chest wall which would have made the surgery more complicated.
So they decided to go with 8 cycles of chemo first to shrink the tumor. Chemo was awful I had mouth sores, fingers and toe nail turned black, body aches nausea and, weight gain! About six weeks after chemo I had an s/p bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. I temporarily had breast implants. The reason I had both breast removed because I tested positive for BRCA 2 cancer gene mutation. About 2months after my mastectomy I started radiation therapy 32 treatments
I had to go everyday which left me exhausted. Radiation is painless until its burns your skin I had to take pain meds and use this tropical cell that didn’t help.
About 2 months after radiation I underwent breast reconstruction again using my own tissue. And I had a full hysterectomy I was high risk for ovarian cancer due to the cancer mutation. And now I’m looking forward to nipple reconstruction. It’s been over a year and I’m cancer free thank god!!!!