Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Shannon's Story from Florida

My daughter Shannon had breast cancer at age 26 in 2004. They did a lumpectomy, chemo and radiation, and then she was on the tamifoxen pill until she got pregnant. She wasn't supposed to get pregnant, her doctor advised her not to, but she did. They wanted her to abort my grandson because the cancer could come back for her or there could be big problems medically or birth defects with the baby. He is beautiful and healthy with no problems.

Because Shannon’s cancer was hormone induced, they did total hysterectomy to keep the cancer from returning. This past July 2007 she would have been 3 years cancer free. But, they found a lump in the same breast and did a double mastectomy on July 20, 2007. She is cancer free again.

Because Shannon was 26 the first time she was diagnosed and we had no family history of breast cancer, the doctors really didn't want to do anything and kept putting her off until we insisted. They felt they caught it in time, but then it came back, so now we are praying it won’t come back after the mastectomy.

Shannon has been through a lot trying to work and take care of her son who is 18 months old now. They won't be able to do reconstruction until next year to make sure they have clear scans and blood work up until then. She is a teacher and did get to go back to work last week.

Ft Myers, Florida

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