breast cancer awareness

AAWWAARREENNEESS SSBreast CCaanncceerr

2014

“I knew I had alittle more thanjust something tobe concernedabout. This wasabout my life.” BARBARA CROUT/Survivor

“I had already beenthrough so much. Since

May 5, 1955, I’ve beenrunning for Jesus.

It was no way I wasabout to stop now.”

ELNA MAE MILLS/Survivor

“I thank God that all 28lymph nodes tested

negative. This all happenedin 1987. By God’s grace I am

still here. I am a survivor.”PATSY HILL/Survivor

“I didn’t know anyone whohad gone through breast

cancer. There was no familyhistory. I had no one to talk to

who had actually gonethrough this, and for a

moment, I felt more alonethan I had ever felt in my life.”RITA HALDEMAN/

Survivor

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 20142 THE HUNTSVILLE ITEM breast cancer awareness

By MArissA NuNeZ

For The huNTsville iTeM

Breast cancer is one of the leading causesof death among women in the united states,with reports by the American Cancersociety estimating more than 60,000 deathsin the last year.

it is most commonly found in womenages 50 and older, however young womenare still highly at risk for developing breastcancer with 11 percent of diagnoses being inwomen younger than the age of 40.

it is a disease that can be triggered by awide range of factors, such as family histo-ry, genetics and even lifestyle.

For young women in college, however,the lifestyle of all night studying, stress andbeing in a alcohol saturated environmentcan increase those chances even more.

in a 2013 survey done bybreastcancer.org, researchers found that astartling 88 percent of young women sur-veyed are “uninterested” in learning abouthow to reduce alcohol consumption, Dr.Marissa Weiss president of breastcancer.orgtold Medscape Medical News in an inter-view.

“Alcohol is embedded in all the goodtimes in life,” she said, referring to typicalcollege socializing.

Weiss also states that due to the amountof stress college can put on an individual isanother reason why so many college stu-dents, both male and female, drink on sucha frequent basis.

“Alcohol is also self-medication. Theseare stressful times with a lot of economicuncertainty, and alcohol is a reward at theend of a long day,” said Weiss.

The young survivor Coalition, an organ-ization dedicated to helping young womenand communities become more educatedabout breast cancer through various pro-grams, states that women under the age of40 tend to face more aggressive forms ofbreast cancer with a very low survival rate.That is due to the fact that majority of youngwomen are not educated enough when itcomes to looking for signs and symptoms ofbreast cancer or about how to reduce theirrisk of developing it.

in fact, young women tend to face moreadvanced stages of breast cancer due to thislack of knowledge, which is why TaylorTompkins president of Zeta Tau Alpha-Delta Zeta Chapter at sam houston stateuniversity and Tori Carruth ritual chair ofZTA, stress the importance of self-examina-tion and visiting the doctor regularly.

“self-checking is so important, but a lotof girls our age don’t visit the gynecologistsas often as they should because they thinkthat since they’re not sexually active thatthey don’t have to go,” Tompkins said.“however, visiting the gynecologists is verybeneficial because when you go they do abreast exam for you, so its very important

for young girls to visit their doctors or doself-checks.”

For Carruth, she experienced the debili-tating nature of breast cancer firsthandwhen her grandmother and mother werediagnosed while she was growing up andmost recently when her stepsister was diag-nosed at the age of 29.

she says her stepsister didn’t realize any-thing was wrong until she began having dif-ficulty breast feeding, which was when shedecided to get herself checked out.

After months of intense radiation,chemotherapy and receiving a double mas-tectomy, doctors believed her stepsister wasfinally cancer free and in remission.

sadly though, the cancer ended up com-ing back a few months later, this time as amore aggressive stage-four, triple-negative

cancer which ended up spreading to herstepsister’s lymph nodes and lungs.

“it only took a year and a half since thetime she was diagnosed to the time shepassed away, it was very sudden, and i don’tthink women realize how quickly breastcancer can progress” Carruth said. “she wasonly 29, and if she hadn’t had her childwhen she did she would have never knownshe had breast cancer. i think that if she hadbeen checking herself regularly shewould’ve caught it months earlier, and itprobably would’ve ended differently.”

As important as it is to check yourself ona regular basis, both Tompkins and Carruthsay that paying close attention to your bodyis just as important because “no one knows

THE HUNTSVILLE ITEM 3SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2014 breast cancer awareness

Young women lookto spread awarenessas part of sorority’sphilantropy project

AGE DOESN’T MATTER

SUBMITTED PHOTOMembers of the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority pose for a group shot at their annual Pink Out game. The group has adopted breast cancer awareness as their sorority’s philanthopic charity project.

SUBMITTED PHOTOZTA members at their 2014 Crown Classic Golf Tournament to benefit breast cancer awareness.

See ZTA, page 4


By WInsTon sPencer [email protected]

Two women, both diagnosed with adreaded disease, found something withinthey didn’t know they had. Both found thecourage to face an uncertain future. Bothuncovered the strength to become what theyhad to be — cancer survivors.

Their stories are tales of victory and oflife beyond what could have been a deathsentence.

For Barbara crout and elna Mae Millslife is so much sweeter given the blessing ofa second chance.

one day while going through a routinecheckup, a lump was discovered in thebreast of Barbara crout. she went in fortests and the results revealed it was cancer.

“I knew I had a little more than justsomething to be concerned about. This wasabout my life,” said crout, who underwenta double mastectomy 30 years ago thismonth.

For elna Mae Mills, who also discovereda lump in her breast, the news brought backthe words of her mother.

“she always said, ‘If you ever foundsomething like that, go get it checked out assoon as you can,’” Mills said.

Her results too came back malignant.“I always knew it was a chance I’d not

survive the surgery,” crout said. “But one ofthe first things I learned was to become aswell informed as I could and have a positiveattitude. I naturally was afraid, but my doc-tors said if we move quickly my chances forrecovery improved dramatically.

“It was a few days that I felt sorry formyself, but that didn’t last long because Ihad so much to live for and so much supportfrom a loving husband and four children.”

crout remembers another survivor com-

ing to visit during the early days of her treat-ment.

“I just thought how wonderful andencouraging it was to see another personthat had gone through what I was goingthrough,” crout said. “That person inspiredme to get involved in the reach to recoveryProgram.”

crout has gone on to inspire others witha message of hope and recovery. croutnever let cancer get her down. she playsgolf, sings in her church choir and goes ball-room dancing with her husband of 63 years.

“Those suffering from cancer can look atsomeone that’s recovered and it just makesthem more hopeful,” crout said.

over the last 30 years, crout has workedhard to bring the reach to recovery pro-gram to the Huntsville area.

In January 1970, Mills detected a lumpin her left breast. After undergoing a mas-tectomy and enduring six weeks of radiationshe was declared cancer-free. However,during her routine yearly checkup, another

lump was discovered in her right breast.“I had already been through so much,”

Mills said. “since May 5, 1955, I’ve beenrunning for Jesus. It was no way I was aboutto stop now.”

Mills credits her faith in God that kepther from losing hope.

“I remember going to the hospital andseeing a lot of other women a lot worse offthan I was,” Mill remembers. “The radiationused to burn my skin and cause all theseblisters to come up. But I always knew thatif I continued to trust in the lord, every-thing was going to turn out all right. Jesuscan fix it child,” Mills says, almost jumpingfor joy.

like crout, Mills understands the impor-tance of a positive attitude.

“I pray every day and thank the goodlord every day,” Mills said. “In life we gothrough trials and tests. But I’m a living wit-ness that my test has become a testimony.I’m 92 years old and nothing but the mightyhand of the lord has kept me.”

PHOTOS BY JOSHUA YATES/THE HUNTSVILLE ITEMBarbara Crout, left, and Elna Mae Mills, right, are breast cancer survivors with extraordinary tales of survival dating back decades. Crout underwent a double mastectomy 30 years ago this month afterdiscovering a lump in her breast. Mills found lumps in both of her breasts at different times, both leading to intense rounds of radiation that caused blisters and burns on her skin.

Walker County womendefeat deadly disease

BEATING THE BEAST

your body better than yourself.”“If something feels wrong to you then you should

probably get it checked out, and if you don’t knowyour body then get to know it because then you can beable to tell when something is wrong and go to thedoctor,” Tompkins said.

The war against breast cancer is far from over, butyoung women can start taking precautionary steps nowto help reduce their risk of developing it in the future.

By altering small things in your daily life, such aslowering alcohol consumption and exercising more;becoming more aware of your body and by simply tak-ing the time out to educate yourself on the differentsigns and symptoms of breast cancer can make a dras-tic difference in the end.

ZTAContinued from page 3

In April 1987 I was taking a shower.After I finished, as I was drying myselfoff, I felt something in my right breast.I kept feeling it. It felt like the size of amarble.

All weekend it bothered me. I didnot know what it was. At that time I didnot even think about breast cancer.

Monday morning I called my doctor.I told the receptionist about it and sheinformed my doctor. When I got myappointment, my doctor felt the lumpand he told me that for the next twoweeks to avoid all caffeine and choco-late products because caffeine enhances

the production oflumps, cysts andabnormalities in thebreast. After twoweeks it was stillthere. I went back tothe doctor and hescheduled me amammogram. Them a m m o g r a mshowed a spot. Mydoctor then ordereda biopsy.

The results showed a tumor the sizeof a chicken egg. I had breast surgery

done. THey removed the entire breastand 28 lymph nodes. The surgeon saidthey will test the lymph nodes for signsof malignancy and itf any of them test-ed positive it would indicate that thecancer has metastasized elsewhere inmy body.

I thank God that all 28 lymph nodestested negative. This all happened in1987. By God’s grace I am still here.

I am a survivor.I said, I am a survivor.

Patsy Hill

hill

From a survivor: ‘I’m still here’


By JP mCBride

[email protected]

Breast cancer affects hundreds of thou-sands of women each year, no matter whatrace or what country they live in, and is theleading cause of cancer deaths amongstwomen around the world. the key to stop-ping it before it becomes life threatening isdetecting the cancer as early as possible.

3-d mammography, a relatively newtechnology, is both improving breast cancerdetection rates and detecting cancer earlierthan conventional mammography, givingwomen a better chance to survive the fight.

during a 3-d mammography exam, anx-ray arm sweeps over the breast in an arcand takes multiple pictures. a computerthen produces 3-d images of the patient’sbreast tissue in one millimeter slices, whichgives a radiologist a better chance at detect-ing cancer that might be missed by a con-ventional digital mammogram.

Pam dowell, manager of aspireHospital in Huntsville, says the technologyis so incredible that it’s like something outof a science fiction movie.

“depending on what position i have thebreast in, whether it’s going from top to bot-tom or side to side, the software lets us seestraight through the breast from one side tothe other,” dowell said. “i mean it goes allthe way through all of the breast tissue. it’spretty amazing. i’ve been doing mammog-raphy for 40 years and this is like Star Warsfor me.”

aspire Hospital has been using 3-d

mammography since dowell started work-ing there in 2012. it is available to anyonewho is looking to undergo a standard mam-mogram.

“anytime someone comes in for ascreening mammogram, which is typicallyjust an annual routine mammogram, theycan choose 3-d,” Powell said. “Just thisyear, some of the insurance companies arepicking up some of the cost of that.”

not only do the 3-d images produced bythe x-ray scan help detect cancers, but italso minimizes the chance of a doctor call-ing patients back for a “second look.”

radiologists view all of a patient’s breasttissue in one flat image when using conven-tional digital mammography, which cansometimes mistakenly lead to cancer diag-noses.

“Just recently the studies have started tocome out about the decrease in false posi-tives,” dowell said. “those have decreasedbecause the 3-d mammograms have helpedus figure it out on the front end.”

dowell believes 3-d mammography isan improvement over conventional mam-mography in every way and will save manywomen’s lives down the road.

“i think what this technology is going todo is it is going to find breast cancer a lotquicker,” dowell said. “For women, it’sgoing to be the matter of finding it at a man-ageable time versus a time that maybe willcost them their lives.”

aspire Hospital is located at 123Bmedical Park lane, in the same medicalplaza as Huntsville memorial Hospital.

New technology leads toearly, increased detection

By Cody Stark

[email protected]

Some women don’t have the funds, letalone the time and convenience, to get cru-cial breast cancer screenings.

that’s where the rose mobilemammography steps in.

the rose was founded in 1986 to pro-vide affordable breast health care to womenfor cancer diagnosis and prevention. thanksto additional funding from businesses andnonprofit organizations such as WoodforestCharitable Foundation, the rose intro-duced its first mobile unit 10 years ago andthe mobile mammography service hassteadily grown since in size and popularity.

a fourth mobile mammography unit wasadded to the fleet, which means that nearly12,000 women in the Houston area —including Walker County — will haveaccess to the rose’s services in 2015regardless of their ability to pay.Sponsorships are available for uninsuredwomen.

“mammography is an essential commu-nity health service, a screening that everywoman over the age of 40 should haveevery year,” said dorothy Gibbons, Ceoand co-founder of the rose. “Studies clear-

ly show the impact of mammographyscreening on reducing the number ofwomen who die from breast cancer. yet forthe hard-working poor in our communities,being able to have this important preventivescreening is difficult, if not impossible.even when women have insurance, takingtime off from work becomes a barrier.

“We are saying as loud and as often aswe can — mobile mammography savestime, money and lives. We know that ruralareas see more loss of life due to breast can-cer. and we know that taking services towomen makes all the difference in theworld. Bottom line, the rose mobilemammography is a good investment for ahealthy community.”

according to one study, close to 30 per-cent of women in texas age 40 and oldersaid they have not had a mammogram in thepast two years. another shows that womenin rural areas tend to be diagnosed in laterstages of breast or cervical cancer becausethey delay screenings due to factors such astravel distance to facilities that offer mam-mograms.

the rose is trying to remedy that situa-tion. the fourth mobile unit and new fund-ing from the Cancer Prevention andresearch institute of texas has expanded

the rose’s coverage area to 35 counties.Cindy Fairchild, a Sam Houston State

graduate, is the rose’s mobile programmanager. She’s excited that more serviceswill be available to Huntsville and WalkerCounty residents.

“in the last two years, the rose has pro-vided screenings and diagnostic services to106 women in Walker County, 64 via ourmobile units,” Fairchild said. “one womanwas diagnosed with breast cancer. i’mthrilled that if there is another woman in thiscommunity — that means so much to meand my family — who is in need of care,the rose is going to be there for her.”

the rose mobile mammography made532 visits to 160 locations with only threevehicles last year. that number should growwith the additional unit.

Gibbons said there are many reasonswhy the rose mobile mammography pro-gram has been so successful for businessesas well as partnering non-profits:

• mobile mammography is more eco-nomical as employees cut what is typicallya 2-plus hour travel/parking/appointmentexperience to less than 20 minutes.

• Set up within an office or small busi-ness only requires a 10-by-10 area and threegrounded outlets.

• With the use of the confidential onlinetool, paperwork can be completed beforethe appointment so the entire experiencelasts only 15 minutes from check-in tocheck-out.

• Unlike mammography programs withwalk-on rVs, the rose’s mobile van can beparked anywhere.

“adding a fourth unit means we nowhave the capacity and staff to serve so manymore women in 2015,” Gibbons said.“already those companies we’ve served inthe past are introducing the rose to theircolleagues. the rose was birthed with avision of access to care. thanks to ourfriends at Woodforest CharitableFoundation, we are seeing that visionbecome reality.”

the rose welcomes businesses and cor-porations to join the growing number ofclients who feature the mobile mammogra-phy unit during employee wellness pro-grams and host a mobile mammography dayat their workplace. For more information,email [email protected] or visitwww.the-rose.org. to set up a site visit, call(281) 464-5136 or [email protected].

The Rose provides free mammogram tests

By Rita Haldeman

PuBlisHeR

On thursday, Oct. 2, i will celebrate twoyears as a breast cancer survivor. Happybirthday to me!

all of us who have survived the ordeal ofbreast cancer have a story to share, andhopefully by sharing, women and men of allages will be a little more aware that it can,in fact, happen to anyone.

more importantly, if caught in the earlystages, breast cancer is certainly not a deathsentence.

the last couple of years have been a littlehectic. i have lived in shreveport,louisiana, Greenville, texas, and now herein Huntsville. Go back two years and i wasin Greenville visiting with my family doctorfor a routine visit. the doctor asked mewhen was the last time i had a mammo-gram. i really didn’t know the answer, but itold him two years.

at that point, he insisted that i have onedone that day and that he would make thearrangements. i argued that i had way toomuch work to do and that i would scheduleone soon.

that doctor wasn’t taking no for ananswer. Within an hour, i was in theWomen’s Health waiting room. i had notfelt anything abnormal and he hadn’t doneany type of exam, so i was a little annoyed

at his insistence to have the test done thatday.

Prophetic wisdom? divine intervention?mammograms are not the most pleasant

thing to do, but after it was over, the techni-cian asked me to look at the screen and amass was definitely present. she asked meif it was there on my last mammogram. iknew the answer was no and the heart pal-pitations started ... the first of many.

the technician told me not to worry andthat she would get my previous films fromshreveport so that the radiologist could do acomparison.

the old films came in the next week andi was back at the hospital for an ultrasoundand biopsy. the in-between waiting timesare enough to drive one to drink, but thefinal diagnosis was that i had breast cancer.it was a lobular carcinoma and only about14 percent of women get this type.

lobular carcinoma is difficult to diag-nose both by mammogram and ultrasound,yet they found mine. someone above waslooking out for me!

decisions have to be made and you tryand make them with the best informationyou have. meetings with surgeons, oncolo-gists and radiation oncologists all can beoverwhelming when you are trying to deter-mine what the best course of action is foryour situation. they ultimately leave all thedecisions in your hands and that alone is

frightening. mastectomy, lumpectomy, chemo, radia-

tion, reconstruction are the words you readover and over as you research all of youroptions.

i had to go to Paris, texas, for a specialtest that would make sure that the cancerwas confined to just the one breast. afterfinishing that, i noticed there was a Harleydealership next door. We had sold ourHarley Classic back in 2002 and had beenwithout a bike since that time.

i looked at my husband and said, “doyou know what i think would help me getthrough this and my treatment?” Of course,he said no. “i think i would like to buyanother Harley so that i can recapture thatsense of freedom, of being carefree with noworries.”

Bob really thought i was kidding. i was-n’t and prior to my surgery we bought aRoad King. no regrets here.

at this time, i didn’t know anyone whohad gone through breast cancer. there wasno family history. i had no one to talk towho had actually gone through this, and fora moment, i felt more alone than i had everfelt in my life.

my husband and kids were great. myfriends were supportive. my shreveportchurch family became great prayer warriorsjust for me. all these blessings surroundedme, yet i was immersed in fear of theunknown.

What i did know is that this was a newseason that was heavily surrounded by darkclouds.

i could walk through this with a spirit ofcourage as i tried to praise God in thisuncharted territory that we call cancer. icould face this with strength and dignity asthis obviously was an intended part of myjourney. i could praise Him in this storm ifthat’s what it took to carry me through.

Or ... i could just let it get the best of meand let fear and depression take root in thevery fiber of my being.

i chose to “fight like a girl,” whateverthat means.

i decided to go the lumpectomy route.the remainder of my treatment plan wouldhave to wait until the pathology was back,including a test they call an Oncotype dX.this test analyzes the activity of a group ofgenes that can affect how a cancer is likelyto behave and respond to treatment. it helpsdoctors figure out a woman’s risk of early-stage, estrogen-receptor-positive breast can-cer coming back (recurrence), as well ashow likely she is to benefit from chemother-apy after breast cancer surgery.

my surgery went well with the exceptionof the fact they could not get me to breatheon my own and had to intubate me again. ihad to spend the night in iCu, and althoughi have no memory, i have been told that iwas not very nice to anyone. not the nurses,not my husband, not my daughter.

the publisher i worked for in Greenvillehas told me that i called her that eveningand i was like a wild child. she found itamusing ... thank God.

it was not until the end of november thati had all my test results back, and togetherwith my doctor we determined that sevenweeks of radiation was a great option forme. Great is probably the wrong adjective,for going through radiation therapy wasanything but nice. i decided to take mytreatments at the end of the work day so thati could go home when it was over.

a little more than halfway through mytreatment, one of my employees comment-ed to me as i as leaving. “Bet you are reallygoing to miss leaving early every day whenthis is all over.” not a smart thing to say tome.

i was so tired and my skin was reallyfeeling the effects of the radiation. youcould even say i was a wee bit cranky.everyone in the building stopped what theywere doing. you could hear a pin drop. myhead whipped around like l had the role ofReagan in “the exorcist.”

“Really?” “do you think i’m leavingearly to go have fun? do you think i enjoyexposing myself to a room full of techni-cians and having my skin burned to a pulp?”i think it was the only time i actually gotangry throughout this entire process.

i couldn’t get out of there fast enough. idefinitely felt bad about it afterward, but atthat particular moment in time, my ire defi-nitely got the best of me.

in preparation for writing this column, iread my journal for the first time since writ-ing it two years ago. it brought back someunpleasant memories that i had almost for-gotten about. But it also reminded me howblessed i was.

the bottom line is this: miraculously, thedoctors found my cancer very early. theyremoved the cancer, treated me with radia-tion therapy and now i have the distinctionof being known as a survivor. the titlemakes me a little bit uncomfortable, but it’sbetter than the alternative.

to those of you reading this, be faithfulgetting those yearly mammograms. thisdisease affects one out of eight women andmore men are being diagnosed than everbefore.

despite the fact that there are approxi-mately 2.8 million breast cancer survivorsin the united states, the american Cancersociety reports that one in 36 will not beable to beat it. Of six of my friends thathung together through high school andbeyond, four of us have been diagnosed.

my prayer, like the prayer of many oth-ers, is that a cure is found and breast canceris eradicated from the face of the earth.However, until that time, we owe it to our-selves and to our families to do our due dili-gence by being aware, doing self-examina-tions and annual mammograms.


My journey with breast cancerPHOTO BY JOSHUA YATES/THE HUNTSVILLE ITEM

A little more thanhalfway through mytreatment, one of myemployees comment-

ed to me as I was leav-ing, ‘Bet you are reallygoing to miss leaving early every day when

this is all over.’ Not a smart thing

to say to me.

RITA HALDEMAN/ Pubilsher,The Huntsville Item

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breast cancer awareness

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