ROCKINGHAM — Sandra Lynch is one of those people who goes in each year for those medical checkups and screenings doctors recommend for people over a certain age. The results were always fine.

In 1998, Lynch said she had a hysterectomy but did not follow up with the recommended hormone replacement therapy.

“I wasn’t going to take those pills,” she said. “And I didn’t, not for a long time. But then I made up my mind one day I was going to start taking them like I was supposed to.

But it was not until she contacted her doctor after a Fourth of July party in 2014 that she learned the odd bump on the side of her chest after suffering multiple mosquito bites was breast cancer.

“So the next night I’m sitting at home and my great-niece is spending the night with me,” Lynch said. “She was sleeping across my lap and I didn’t want to make her move, but I was itching all around my shoulders and back. When I reached across my chest to my left arm, I just felt something in the shape of an egg, right on the side.”

She immediately began to check for symmetry. The bump was in an odd place, the kind of place you might expect, if there was a body part there, to find one like it in the same place on the other side of the body. But this hardness on her right side had no counterpart on her left. Lynch said she knew something was not right, but she froze.

“You go through a moment of denial,” she said. “So the next morning I got up and was getting ready for church and I checked again and of course it was still there. I decided to go see my OB/GYN at FirstHealth in Pinehurst. And he said he wanted to order an ultrasound.”

While Lynch faithfully went in for her yearly mammogram, she admitted she had never been comfortable with the concept of the breast self-exam and that she really didn’t know how to do one correctly.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describe a breast self-exam is “when you check your own breasts for lumps, changes in size or shape of the breast, or any other changes in the breasts or underarm.” But it also cautions that the self-exam alone has not been proven to be effective in saving lives.

The American Cancer Society recommends yearly mammograms starting at age 45 and continuing for as long as a woman is in good health.

Although men can also develop breast cancer, they have much less breast tissue than women so some of these signs that are detected during a breast self-exam can be easier to notice in men than in women. So unless a man has one of a handful of very rare genetic markers, no yearly mammograms are recommended for them.

Lynch had her ultrasound about a week later.

“The tech was doing everything she was supposed to do,” Lynch said. “You just see the look on their face and you know something’s not right. And then the radiologist came in and said, ‘We’re going to get in touch with your OB/GYN because you need to have a breast biopsy done, and I’m almost positive it’s cancer.’ I didn’t want to hear that. You don’t want to hear that.”

Lynch said she’d just lost her brother to lung cancer in April, and to be here three months later facing this was a heavy burden.

“They scheduled me for the biopsy on July 2o,” Lynch said. “I was here at work (at FirstHealth Ortho and Ear, Nose and Throat in Rockingham) on July 24 and the phone rang and I picked up, and a lady said, ‘Is this Ms. Lynch?’ And I said, ‘Yes, it is, and she told me her name — I can’t tell you whatever she said her name was — and she said, ‘I’m calling to give you the results of your breast biopsy. It is cancer. It’s mucinous carcinoma‎.’ And, I lost it back there.”

Lynch said that two of her health care providers there working the same shift with her that day and were there, and that her X-ray tech was there. They were all male, and they heard her when she “lost it.”

“They all heard me, and they all said, ‘You’re all right. Everything is going to be fine, we’re going to take care of this,’” she recalled.

Lynch said one of them got on the phone with a general surgeon and that she was in the general surgeon’s office that day.

“It was knowing people who know people,” Lynch said. “My providers were not playing around. They got on the phone and got me in touch with Dr. (H. Willy) Chu and I was in his office that same afternoon. He explained everything to me. It was Stage 1. He went over my mammogram and everything and he told me what my options were.”

Dr. Chu suggested a lumpectomy and a thorough examination of Lynch’s lymph nodes, followed by only radiation treatments if all went well — sparing her the additional discomfort and sickness that often accompanies chemotherapy.

Actress Angelina Jolie underwent a preventative double mastectomy in 2013 to reduce her likelihood of a breast cancer diagnosis due to a mutation in her BRCA1 gene — known as the human tumor suppressor gene responsible for repairing human DNA.

This raised awareness of mastectomy as an option for prevention, rather than merely the treatment, of breast cancer.

“He did offer me that as an option,” Lynch said. “So I asked him what he thought. I wanted his opinion on what would be best for me. I’d always thought that if you had a mastectomy, then you couldn’t get breast cancer. You can. You can still get breast cancer. It’s in your tissue, and I didn’t know that until Dr. Chu told me at the time. I chose the lumpectomy.”

Dr. Chu warned Lynch that because of where the lump was located, very near the top of the skin, it would be harder to completely remove. After the operation, he explained, they would test it, and if the outer edges were clear it would be a sign that all the cancer had been removed. But if not, a second operation would be necessary.

“So he did the surgery that Friday morning,” Lynch said. “I found out on Thursday and I was in surgery Friday morning.”

Many people have to wait for surgery, Lynch said, and even though she was not as unfortunate, she understands what it must be like for those who make up the majority of cancer patients and must wait for some time.

Lynch’s team of FirstHealth doctors consisting of Sushma M. Patel, M.D., radiation oncologist and Todd A. Moore, M.D., medical oncologist at FirstHealth Cancer Services of Pinehurst, along with H. Willy Chu, M.D., general surgeon from FirstHealth General Surgery of Rockingham, combined their skills and experience to form the best plan of action for treating her cancer.

“Radiation therapy is a very safe and effective treatment for early breast cancer,” said Steven King, M.D., radiation oncologist at FirstHealth Cancer Services in Pinehurst. “Lump removal surgery followed by radiation therapy is as effective as mastectomy (complete removal of the breast) in curing early breast cancer. Unlike mastectomy, lump removal surgery followed by radiation therapy enables a woman to preserve the natural shape, feel and appearance of the breast. Modern radiation therapy techniques allow us to treat women with breast cancer very safely with minimal side effects.”

“A lot of people think, because you hear it all the time, breast cancer is genetic — and it is a majority of the time,” Lynch said. “But they are surprised to learn that the gene is not passed down from the mother. It’s from the father’s side, from female relatives on that side of the family.”

Unfortunately when the results came back from the testing of the removed tumor, the “margins were not clear,” and Lynch had to have a second surgery on Aug. 8.

Since then, she has made many follow-up visits to her doctors, and she appears to be free of all cancer. Her treatment is completed, but her fight against the disease is not.

Lynch has become an advocate for breast cancer survivors and participates in fundraising and awareness campaigns several times each year.

Reach reporter Melonie McLaurin at 910-817-2673 and follow her on Twitter @melonieflomer.

Melonie McLaurin | Daily Journal Sandra Lynch is nearing the first anniversary of completing radiation treatments for breast cancer she detected entirely by accident on July 5, 2014. Today she feels healthy and empowered, and no longer regards cancer as a “death sentence.”
https://www.yourdailyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_SandraLynch.jpgMelonie McLaurin | Daily Journal Sandra Lynch is nearing the first anniversary of completing radiation treatments for breast cancer she detected entirely by accident on July 5, 2014. Today she feels healthy and empowered, and no longer regards cancer as a “death sentence.”

By Melonie McLaurin

[email protected]