Christine and Salt are celebrating breast cancer awareness month with Wellness Wednesdays. Every Wednesday at 7:15 a.m. during the month of October, Christine and Salt feature a different aspect of breast cancer awareness.
Today, they chatted with the Director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at Hartford Healthcare, Dr. Deborah Feldman, who is a two year breast cancer survivor. Dr. Deb talked about being both a doctor *and* a patient, “I do want to say that my cancer was detected by a routine mammogram. I had no family history, I had no risk factors. So it’s super important for that [self and yearly] screening.”
Dr. Deb agreed with Christine — who is a lymphoma survivor — that having cancer is not at all like it’s depicted in the movies where you find out you have a lump and then the next day you start treatment. “There were weeks of getting data together. So once you start your treatment things go a lot smoother. I had an excellent team here at Hartford Healthcare, I knew I was in good hands and I just let the experts do their thing.”
Even as an OBGYN, Dr. Deb realized she knew very little about breast cancer, “I didn't know how complex the disease of breast cancer was. When I was in training, I was taught it was a simple staging based on the size of the tumor and whether it was in your lymph nodes. Now it's a lot more complex because all the advances that they've made. So it's not a cookie cutter approach to breast cancer anymore.”
Another thing she learned is — despite being a doctor herself — is to let the doctors be in charge, "I had chemo first and I just always assumed if you had breast cancer, you would have surgery first. I thought at the beginning [I should have surgery first] because I really just wanted [the tumor] out. But I realize now…having chemo first saved me. So I want to just put it out there to patients to listen to your doctors. They know what's going to work the best based on your tumor type.”
Dr. Deb also remembers one sentence from her oncologist that stayed with her throughout her treatment, “I remember my oncologist saying to me, this is bread and butter breast cancer and we are treating you for a cure.”
"WE ARE TREATING YOU FOR A CURE."
Never before has one sentence given her so much life.
Two years have gone by since beating breast cancer and she’s learned a thing or two, “I would say that I don't take little things for granted. I try not to sweat the small stuff. I realized that there are more important things than the things that I used to stress out about.”
Check out the full interview with Dr. Deb below, and be sure to listen for Wellness Wednesdays every Wednesday in October at 7:30 a.m. on Christine and Salt.
Related
