She got breast cancer for her birthday
“What did you get for your birthday?” Lara Hays said with a dry smile and a twinkle in her eye. “I got breast cancer for mine.”
It all started in the wee hours of her 39th birthday. She had just baked herself a cake and showered off the excess sugar and flour when she spied herself in the mirror. She lingered. That’s when she noticed one nipple looked different.
“It was flat and kind of odd looking,” Lara said. “I went to see if there were any lumps there — instantly I knew.”
Breast cancer runs in Lara’s family; or as Lara says, she comes from a long line of strong women. Her great-grandmother, grandmother, aunt and cousin have fought or currently fight the disease. So, when she felt the lump, she knew the importance of fast action.
“I appreciate how quickly the appointments were made available to me. There’s a physical need for that, but it’s also so much of a mental game. I can’t imagine waiting a week to get in! My primary care doctor saw me the next day, and they helped make a mammogram appointment with an ultrasound for the day after that. Then, the very next business day was my biopsy. Everyone worked so quickly,” Lara said.
Within just a few days, doctors specified Lara’s cancer diagnosis as invasive ductal carcinoma, meaning the cancerous cells had surpassed the breast ducts and invaded the surrounding breast tissue. With 80 percent of breast cancers falling into this category, it’s the most common type of breast cancer.
Lara has a gift for researching information, so she met with several oncologists and spent time reading online. She gathered multiple opinions and listened to different options before deciding to undergo an MRI and biopsy of the lymph nodes — and it’s a good thing she did.
The MRI revealed that the tumor was much larger than previously thought. It measured 8 cm in diameter (nearly the size of a baseball) in her left breast directly behind the nipple.
“My boobs aren’t very photogenic, I guess,” Lara joked. “The first scan didn’t capture the full size of the tumor; thankfully, the MRI did.”
Finding the large tumor changed the course for Lara’s cancer treatment. The oncologists now highly recommended chemotherapy and radiation in addition to surgery to fight off the Stage 3 cancer.
“People would say to me, ‘At least you caught it early,’ and that was hard to hear. I know they meant well, but I didn’t catch it early. Early is when you can’t feel it and it’s a tiny spot on a mammogram,” Lara said. “I don’t know how I missed a baseball size tumor. It’s not like one breast was lopsided. It’s that it was so big, it almost replaced the whole breast. It was a big, sneaky tumor.”
Lara chose to undergo chemotherapy treatments at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center’s Cancer Center, under the direction of medical oncologist Dr. Gary Cecchi.
“I have had the most amazing doctors. I did my research, and you could not ask for a better pedigree in a medical oncologist than Dr. Cecchi. Same with Dr. Daniel Miller, my radiation oncologist, and my surgeon. I felt like I fell in with extremely talented doctors. So much so, I call it divine intervention. I think my mom, who passed away a few years ago, was my guardian angel pulling strings for me,” Lara said.
The angelic help continued during Lara’s six months and 16 rounds of chemotherapy — though in the form of specialists and nurses.
“At the Cancer Center, you’re seeing these people and sharing a vulnerable part of yourself. You’re laughing and crying with them, and they really become friends,” Lara said.
Plus, when the intensity of chemo and the weight of the situation felt heavy, Lara’s close family members and friends added vital and comforting layers of support.
“At the beginning I planned to be strong, stay positive and keep my humor; but after a few months I felt really low. I started getting pessimistic and apathetic. I cried a lot, even though I’m not much of a crier. Then my friend pointed it out. She recognized I was going through a lot emotionally and physically and wondered if I was depressed. That jogged my memory. At my first appointment with my NP at the Cancer Center, they had said chemo can mess up your serotonin and cause depression. I’m so thankful my friend brought it up! Sometimes it takes a friend to help you see what’s going on right in front of you. I was able to get an antidepressant and things felt more doable after that,” Lara said.
After Lara completed chemotherapy, she faced surgical removal of both breasts, known as a double mastectomy. Before the surgery, the doctors ordered another scan — and to Lara’s astonishment, the tumor didn’t show up on the image.
“To have that large of a tumor become undetectable on an MRI is amazing! So, obviously my body responded well to the chemo, and it did everything it was supposed to,” Lara said.
During the mastectomy, Lara’s surgeon removed four lymph nodes and performed several biopsies. The lab results verified that the chemotherapy had killed 99 percent of the cancerous cells, but they also discovered cancerous cells had erupted from the lymph nodes. So, on the side of caution, Lara endured one more surgery to remove all remaining lymph nodes in the area. Thankfully, those lymph nodes did not contain cancer.
Lara’s cancer journey continues. She begins six weeks of daily radiation treatments at EIRMC’s Cancer Center this month, but she hopes to hear the words “cancer free” long before her next birthday.
That said, Lara reflectively noted that finding cancer on her birthday brought some positive gifts into her life.
“It gifted me with a new way to look at things and a second chance to love my family,” Lara said. “I think it brings everything into a sharper focus about what matters in life. It’s important to really live life; to make choices purposefully; to live intentionally.”