Baseline, routine mammograms led to early detection

Allisha Harrison never expected to find her breast cancer at such an early stage in October 2016, but she did, thanks to knowing her family history and having a mammogram.

In addition to self-exams, Harrison started having a regular mammogram at 40, establishing a baseline as early as possible because of her family history with breast cancer.

Her grandmother, Buna “Boots” Dunaway, and her aunt, Martha “Mott” Dunaway, both battled breast cancer. Her grandmother had a mastectomy of her right breast at 87 years old, and her Aunt Mott battled Stage 4 breast cancer for three years before passing.

“I had a baseline (mammogram performed) at 40.... because it runs in my family,” Harrison said. “Ten years ago, the doctors said, ‘Well, you just need to have a baseline.’”

She said she went yearly for her mammogram for nearly 10 years. She did not receive a mammogram in 2014 and 2015 because of personal and family circumstances.

“In 2016, I went (for a mammogram) and got the results,” she said. “I went on a Tuesday and got the results on a Friday. The following Monday, I had my first needle biopsy.”

When she was told she had breast cancer, she was shocked.

“My first reaction was, ‘Oh crap. I don’t really need this right now,’” she said. “My oldest daughter’s a senior (in high school). My youngest daughter is in her first year at the high school. I don’t have time for that.

“It didn’t matter if I was ready for it or not.”

Harrison said she met with Dr. Sam Sawyer, a surgeon with Sawyer Surgical Clinic, after receiving the results of her mammogram. She later met with her oncologist, Dr. Mary Misischia, soon after.

Harrison said Misischia told her she should have a lumpectomy performed to remove the cancerous spots and see “the margins” of the cancer areas. Then, Harrison would begin 40 rounds of radiation treatment.

She said she was not surprised to hear where the cancer was located.

“There were two spots on my baseline that we watched through the years,” she said. “They were very small, but I had very large, dense breasts.

“You kind of listen,” she said. “I heard them mention (during the needle biopsy) that the two spots had arms or were spiking out.”

She said she “kind of” knew her biopsy would come back positive.

“It came back, and it was Stage 0 DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ),” she said. “It’s the most common, and it’s easily cured if you catch it early. Obviously, with Stage 0, I was very early. There was no lump; this was mammogram detected.”

DCIS breast cancer, according to the Mayo Clinic’s website, is “ the presence of abnormal cells inside a milk duct in the breast.”

Harrison’s first lumpectomy was performed at the end of October.

“We didn’t get clear margins,” she said. “A week later, I had my second lumpectomy, and we still didn’t get clear margins. A week after that, I had my third.

“By the third, (Sawyer) had to go so close to the skin right under the nipple that, had he gone any further, he would have come out of the breast,” she said. “I kind of asked (him) at that point, you know, at what point do we say you’re not going to get clear margins and we’re just going to do a mastectomy?”

A week after her third lumpectomy on the Monday before Thanksgiving 2016, Harrison had a double mastectomy.

Harrison said she had mentioned having a mastectomy when she was diagnosed, but her doctors told her that action was “radical.” She said she agreed to wait.

“The only time I second-guessed myself with the double mastectomy was in the very beginning when I told my oncologist and (Sawyer),” she said. “(Otherwise), that was never really a question for me.

“It never really was a hard decision for me because of my family history, because of my granny, my aunt and my experience with breast cancer on my husband’s side of his family,” she said. “It may have been a little bit different had I not had my experience with the women in my immediate family, and it might have been different had I not also had the knowledge through my family history. Plus Judy Poss from my ‘work family’ was going through her own breast cancer journey. And after many conversations with her, I knew the devastation and difficulty of dealing with the diagnosis of breast cancer regardless of the stage.”

Harrison said her doctors finally agreed to perform the surgery but warned her that having a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery would not be an easy process.

“(Getting to the mastectomy) was very quick,” she said. “I pretty much had five surgeries, including the needle biopsy, probably within about a six-week period. I was ready to be done.”

The original plan, she said, was to start reconstructive surgery about six months after her double mastectomy. Her reconstruction surgeries began in May 2017.

Harrison said she normally “researches” information when it comes to her health or the health of her family members.

“I’m a researcher,” she said. “When I made the decision to have the reconstruction surgery... they tell you the process; they tell you it’s not easy. Normally, I would talk to other people and things like that.

“I didn’t talk to anybody about it,” she said. “I didn’t do any research on it.”

She said she thought if she had done any research on reconstruction, she might not have had the surgery.

“I would have probably just done the prosthetics and stuff because the reconstruction surgery was horrible,” she said. “It was tough.

“It’s just the process, the whole process of them having to put the expanders in because you have to stretch your skin so you’ll have enough skin to hold the implants.

“When they do a mastectomy, they take the breast tissue and they take the muscle,” she said. “So, they had to use what they call a subdermal matrix, which is cadaver skin where they removed all the DNA to use as the bottom support for the implants since the breast tissue was gone.”

She said the skin was placed in the area of the reconstruction. The expanders were then put in place.

“It’s just very uncomfortable because the skin is very tight, and the expanders are very hard,” she said. “They expand until you get to the volume or the size that you want.”

Harrison said she was out of work for three weeks following her mastectomies. She said she was out of work for about five weeks following her reconstructive surgery until her four drains were removed.

She said the “expansion process” started after the drain removal. For this process, she had to visit her plastic surgeon once a week until the desired “volume or size” of the expanders had been reached.

“Once you get to the volume that you like, you have to keep those expanders in there for three months,” she said, stating she had her implants put in in October 2017. “So after three months, they removed the expanders, and they put the implants in. That was a breeze. I really think any surgery within the reconstruction process, any surgery is a breeze compared to when they put the expanders in.”

Harrison said she has spent the last year getting to know her body again after completing her reconstructive surgery.

“This is the smallest I’ve ever been, so this last year, even though I’ve had no surgeries, this last year has been more me mentally accepting what I look like,” she said. “You grow up and you have boobs. A lot of women, that’s how they identify themselves. It may not be right; it may not be wrong.”

Harrison said her breasts have been a part of her identity for 35 years, and she is still working on being comfortable with her body after her surgery.

“That’s so weird at 50,” she said. “At 50, you’re supposed to be comfortable. I’m comfortable with who I am and the type of person that I am.

“What’s weird is, I’m 50, and I can hear that image talk of that teenager and that 25 year old,” she said. “I’m also mature enough to know that I’m alive and I’m here.”

Because she opted to have a double mastectomy, Harrison said she did not go through any radiation treatment for her cancer.

“I say that my journey was a relatively easy one because it was caught so early,” she said. “Although people say that a mastectomy is radical and a doubly mastectomy is really radical, in my mind, that was the only choice I had. I wasn’t going to just do one.

“Plus, I’m not going to say it was the easy way out, but it was an easier journey because I didn’t have to go through the chemo and the radiation. It was just, you know, you take them off and that’s it.”

Though she did not go through the chemical aspect of breast cancer treatment, she did go through her own battle with breast cancer, and after three lumpectomies, a doubly mastectomy and reconstructive surgery, Harrison said she does have physical scars.

“They’re battle scars,” she said. “I’m alive. I’m cancer free. That’s all that matters, and that’s just part of my journey.

“I went two years without (a mammogram), and (two spots) had not changed in six years, so sometime within that two-year time frame... it did change. The two spots weren’t just spots, they had arms. They had changed.”

She said it is important for a woman, or any person, to know their family history.

“It is very important,” she said. “It’s really the difference between Stage 0 and Stages 1, 2 and 3.

“Knowing your family history and getting that baseline, it’s the difference between a relatively simple journey – which is what I consider mine to be even though (I had) five or six surgeries in a year, but it’s simple because I didn’t have to go through the chemo and radiation – versus something a lot worse,” she said. “Know your family history. Know your body. Listen to your body and don’t second guess it. Don’t brush symptoms off; early detection can be the difference between life or death.”

From the very beginning of her journey, Harrison said she had a strong, wonderful support system. This support system, and her faith, helped her during her breast cancer journey.

She said breast cancer and reconstruction can change the relationship between a husband and a wife, and she said she is thankful for her husband, Rusty’s, support and strength during her journey.

“(My husband) did not bargain for this,” she said about cancer and reconstructive surgery. “He said, ‘I don’t care what you do as long as you’re here. I don’t want to do this without you.’”

Her husband also had three aunts who have battled breast cancer. One of them, Gayle McDougal, has recently passed. Harrison said Aunt Gayle would say that she was a lifer because she battled breast cancer her whole entire adult life. Harrison said she battled breast cancer through several remissions and many, many treatments.

“She went with me to my first oncology appointment because she had it before,” she said. “She was battling it at the time, and I trusted her because she knew the questions to ask, whereas I was... kind of in this fog.”

Harrison works at Team Linda Simmons Real Estate, and she said her boss, Linda Simmons, was wonderful and told her she would make it through this journey. She also said that her work family supported her in ways that she could never imagine, from a pink party to meals, texts, calls and especially prayers.

“My blood family and friends were noting short of amazing and I will never be able to express my love and gratitude,” she said. “You kind of hope your family will be there for you, but it is a blessing when your work family supports you, too.

“It’s always easier if you have support,” Harrison said. “They say it takes a village to raise children, but also, I think it takes a village for you to get through the hard times.”

Harrison has two daughters, Marrsai and Baylee. She said that she has been open with them and tries to teach them about health and patience with her story.

“I haven’t kept (my journey) from them because it’s life,” she said. “I think kids nowadays, want instant gratification, and you don’t get that with this (experience). Physically, this was a yearlong process. Mentally, it’s still going on.

“I think that it just teaches them, you know, you have to be patient with the doctors and your own self.”

For those battling cancer or who have just received their diagnosis, Harrison said positive thinking and prayer can help.

“Staying positive, even when it hurts, is so important,” she said. “This is just a pit stop or a train stop on your journey. It’s not the final destination.

“Get people around you who will support you and who will sympathize and understand how you feel. Try to stay positive and have as many people as you can pray for you because the power of prayer and positive thinking (is crucial).”