Breast Cancer Doesn’t Know The Limits | Life

Lorie Ewing knew something was wrong.

“In 2010, when I was working at Beckley’s Stepping Stones (day care), a little kid leaned over and hit his chest with his head. It really hurt,” she said. “Whenever something hits my chest, it hurts, but it hurts even more.”

Ewing was only 31 years old and had no family history of breast cancer, but booked a mammogram.

“They told me I needed to slow down because I drank too much caffeine,” she said of her results.

She did what she was told, but the pain continued.

In 2011, Ewing gave birth to his son Noah. Eighteen months later, when she finished breastfeeding, the same breast did not dry and began to bleed. Still, she was told not to worry.

“Always, they said’caffeine’,” Ewing recalled what the doctor said to her when she expressed concern. “Always,’You are too young.'”

By 2014, when Noah was two and a half years old and was still in pain, another doctor ordered another mammogram.

“She said,’Set up you for safety,’ Ewing said.” She said, “I don’t think it’s cancer, but let’s check it out. “

“I think she saved my life.”

And while lying in bed, in front of the mammogram, Ewing inadvertently found three tight knots under his armpits.

“I was scared,” she said.

The mammogram also picked up the suspicious one and she was recalled for an ultrasound. By that night, she said the radiologist had asked her for further examination.

This time he saw three places on her chest and three places she felt in the lymph nodes under her arms.

“He did an ultrasound and a biopsy. Before I left, I asked him what he thought, and he told me he thought it was cancer,” Ewing said. Told.

And it proved to be correct. On April 23, 2014, at the age of only 35, she was diagnosed with stage 3 HER2-triple positive breast cancer.

“That’s the beginning of the journey,” she said.

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Ewing said it is recommended to be treated at one of the hospitals in Charlottesville, Huntington, or Morgantown.

Next Monday she was at the Joan C. Edwards Cancer Center in Huntington. There she learned that she needed to receive 6 months of chemotherapy before undergoing a double mastectomy.

“They told me it would be a long process, and they would have to shrink the tumor before they could remove the breast,” she said. “Actually, both breasts. I would have to undergo a double mastectomy.”

She returned the following week to receive a port for chemotherapy and was taken to Huntington by family and friends every week for the next three months and every other week for the next three months.

Ewing, who was divorced at the time of treatment, said he had considered giving up after the first treatment.

“I was sick,” she said. “Oh my god, I was very sick. I was sick like a dog and my whole body was in pain. It hurts so much. I told my mother,” I can’t do this anymore. . Is painful.”

At that time, she said, her mother reminded her family and Noah, who appeared at that moment.

“She said,’Lori, I can’t let you do that. You have to think of those who love you,” she said. “Then suddenly this little arm comes in. It’s Noah, and he comes to bed and puts his arm around me, and I knew I needed to do it, And I did. “

It was hard to hear that double mastectomy was needed to save her life, but at the time it wasn’t the most difficult part of her journey, Ewing said.

“I didn’t cry about that part because I felt like I had fulfilled my duty and finished breastfeeding Noah,” she said. “But when they told me I would lose my hair, I cried about that part. I bumped into a brick wall.”

Hair loss began the night after the third treatment in a hotel room in Huntington.

“It started coming out in the gob,” she recalled seeing the hair in the room. “There were big bald spots everywhere.”

When she began treatment, Ewing had her long black hair cut to the bottom of her earlobe. But the night it began to fall naturally, she said it was more than emotionally upset and physically painful.

“I felt like someone was constantly pulling out my hair with a handful,” she said. “I had to relieve the pain, so I had him shave.”

But when she got home, Noah realized she was ill and was scared of what he saw.

“Here my little little boy rushes into the car, but he looks back at me and leaves,” she recalled. “It killed me because the only reason I was fighting was for him.”

At that time, she said she explained to Noah that she could cut her hair just by cutting her hair.

“After that, we became bandana twins,” she said, explaining that Noah was comforted to wear a bandana on her head, just like her mother.

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Chemotherapy reduced the tumor as expected by doctors and underwent double mastectomy on October 30, 2014, according to Ewing.

She had the option of undergoing reconstructive surgery at the time, but lost nearly £ 50 during chemotherapy and decided to use TRAM flaps instead. This is the procedure by which a doctor removes muscle and fat from the body to rebuild the breast. At a later date.

“It was difficult to get a mastectomy, but I knew I would have a mastectomy, so it was okay,” she said.

However, the plan came out of the window in February 2015 when she experienced complications.

“I was awake and preparing Noah for day care. I could hardly move to get up,” she said. “I knew something was wrong, so when I dropped him off, I said that instead of leaving his child seat and picking him up, someone else would pick him up.

“I didn’t know if I would die, but I thought I wouldn’t be able to pick him up.”

Ewing drove to the Carl Larson Regional Cancer Center, where radiation therapy was scheduled, but was sent directly to Raleigh General, where he was diagnosed with a blood clot in the lungs and was hospitalized for a week.

She recovered from a blood clot, but her reconstructive surgery was cancelled.

“After that, I was using anticoagulants, so (the plastic surgeon) didn’t touch me and the surgery took too long,” she said. “I was too risky.”

She was disappointed, but accepted it because she had finished radiation therapy and eventually moved to Saltville, Virginia, where she was near her parents.

But when she got the chance to try again in 2018, she accepted it.

However, her implants lasted only a few months because she soon developed complications.

“When I met the surgeon, he told me they were okay if I felt sick and had a low-grade fever,” she said, explaining that he just gave her antibiotics. did.

However, her oncologist glanced at her red skin and called the surgeon herself, claiming that she would die if nothing was done.

“So the surgeon took me to his office and popped the implant right there,” she said, adding that there were large holes left in each breast.

Soon she returned to the ER and was hospitalized with sepsis spreading throughout her body.

“It was hard,” she said.

Ewing, who recovered from the infection and left more than $ 70,000 in medical expenses, said he was suffering from body image but would not try surgery again.

“The boobs didn’t try to kill me once, they tried to kill me twice, so I’m done,” she said. “That’s what I think from time to time, but I could have left Noah twice.”

As a 41-year-old single mother, she says it’s not easy to live in such a transformed body.

“Dating doesn’t go anywhere,” she said, explaining that she had some difficult experiences with the man and her own self-esteem.

She says she’s working on it, and she’s just happy to be with her son and set a good example for him.

“I don’t want him to grow up and be a man who expects women to be perfect,” she said. “I want him to know that she is still there like this.”

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With the exception of chemotherapy-induced limb neuropathy, Ewing has been doing well lately. She looks forward to celebrating her cancer-free six years on October 30th.

She visits an oncologist every 3 to 6 months and performs annual scans to check for recurrence.

“When you are a survivor, you just survive, but I don’t know if it will come back,” she said. “Maybe it will come back, and it may never come back.”

She is grateful that the cancer was found in time, but she is wondering about the four years from her initial pain to her diagnosis.

That’s what she’s trying to talk to others. She encourages them to become their own advocates.

“If you have any unpleasant pain, check it out,” she said. “Don’t ask me to check again and again,’Oh, you’re too young.’ Cancer doesn’t know the age. I don’t know the age limit. And whether you’re a mom or not. It doesn’t matter if you have a plan of what you want to do in your life.

“If you feel something, don’t hesitate.”

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