Think Pink:Breast cancer treatment and beyond
Story by Lisa Player / Photos by Kate Trieck Photography
There is good news in the world of breast cancer. While it was once unheard-of for a woman to talk out loud about her breasts, now it’s not only OK, it’s considered healthy and necessary.
Yes, breast cancer will touch nearly 13% of women, according to the American Cancer Society, but the survival rate is now a phenomenal 97% and climbing. Breakthroughs in prevention, diagnostics and treatment have vastly improved both the journey and the outcome.
But a breast cancer diagnosis is scary and life changing. Being armed with good information for yourself or your loved one, though, will help you navigate the journey with support and confidence.
Baptist Medical Group’s new oncologist, Amr R. Hassan, M.D., DABIM, MLS, shared his thoughts on some of the most-asked questions surrounding breast cancer. He said the top question a patient asks after a cancer diagnosis usually revolves around the stage of the cancer and how it will impact survival and treatment options.
This makes sense. It’s crucial to get a clear understanding of the situation and what’s going to happen. It’s often a good idea to take a family member or friend with you to these appointments to be sure you’re getting all the information and hearing it correctly.
Survivor Tara Kamm explained what it was like to get that diagnosis alone.
“Boy, was my world turned upside down! I only heard the word cancer and nothing else,” she said. “I then had to drive home sobbing and then deliver this terrible shocking news to my husband. Of course he had a million questions that I could not answer. Because all I heard was cancer. After the fear and shock wore off, I decided at that moment I’d never go alone to an appointment ever again. I needed to take someone to listen and take notes. I got tunnel vision at each visit and had the ability to hear what I wanted, not what they were saying.”
Hassan went on to explain a bit about treatment beyond the traditional chemotherapy and radiation routes.
“Cancer treatment is a comprehensive and all-inclusive approach; it does not just rely on chemotherapy agents,” he said.
Hassan explained other components might “include body and mind therapy from massage therapy to nutrition guidance to psychological and behavioral medicine support, etc. The approach is multi-disciplinary, and a successful cancer treatment has to be multi-faceted to provide the chance of effectiveness and positive outcome.”
At the hospital level, there is an extensive team of experts to help, including oncology nurse practitioners, chemotherapy infusion nurses, medical assistants, social workers, nurse navigators and many others “who collectively and collaboratively” contribute to the patient’s treatment, Hassan explained.
“Cancer treatment has come a long way over the past two decades in particular,” he said. “The progress has been exponential for some malignancies like breast cancer … and there is so much more progress and improvements to come.”
When it comes to a team of people to help the patient, one critical component is the support a woman receives outside the walls of the hospital.
“The best advice that I can give a family member or a loved one is to provide an atmosphere that is loving, harmonious and peaceful to their loved one as he/she goes through cancer treatment,” Hassan stressed. “Tolerance is of insurmountable importance as well, because there are times or days where the cancer patient needs nothing more than being allowed to vent out a variety of feelings and emotions freely without judgment or persecution.”
TARA KAMM:
THE POWER OVER PINK
Tara Kamm, creator of the Power Over Pink YouTube channel, has extensive experience with breast cancer.
“My breast cancer journey started when I was 32 years old,” she said. “I found a lump in my left breast. It turned out to be an atypical cyst that required imaging for the following five years. At the end of the five years the mammogram showed new calcifications in my right breast that required biopsy. Those came back as ‘pre-cancerous,’ and I was told to go speak to an oncologist to discuss the findings. It scared me so bad that I never went. I just wanted to move on and be back to normal.”
After several years of tests and monitoring, Kamm finally had lumpectomy surgery that was followed by a diagnosis of invasive breast ductal carcinoma. Like many women, she just wanted to know how serious it was and whether she was going to be able to fight it and live.
Kamm went through four rounds of chemo and 33 rounds of radiation to her neck, chest and lymph nodes. She is grateful that she didn’t have to go it alone even though she got her diagnosis during COVID, and local support groups had shut down.
She had friends and family to help her through. Her husband, kids, mother and church friends all pitched in to help. She had friends take her to appointments, sit with her after chemo and set up meal trains which were all blessings to her family and took a lot of pressure off of her to be “normal.” Her employer worked with her and allowed her time off after each treatment.
Like many independent women, though, Kamm had trouble accepting help.
“I had to learn to allow them to love me … I quickly learned that I could not face cancer alone. It takes a village. Allowing others to help me when I needed it most really showed me a lot about myself.”
Kamm’s friends and family celebrated the end of her treatment by throwing a “Parade of Pink” with “cars, signs, wigs, Mardi Gras beads, yard signs and lots of glitter. I’ve never felt more love,” she said.
There were some alternative treatments that helped her as well, such as acupuncture and IV infusions at Drip Parlor.
“I had great relief from the side effects of chemo when doing this. I went before and after each dose to give my body some help in healing and recovery time. It really improved the extreme dry mouth I was suffering from and the pain in my intestines,” she said. She worked with a nurse at Drip Parlor on what was OK to use during chemo, but she advises anyone to talk to their doctor first.
Now that she is done with treatment, she has sought even more alternative therapies to “regain some quality of life.” She said she has used lymphatic treatments, fascia massage, acupuncture and natural supplements.
Kamm wanted to help others going through this disease, so she started her Power Over Pink YouTube channel along with a big social media presence.
“I have to be honest here. The cancer journey was not what I expected it to be,” she said. “From diagnosis to treatment. I got little to no education on what was happening to my body and what to expect. I asked questions and got little answers.”
When she had a chemo side effect, she was told it couldn’t be connected because her dose was too low. She felt this response was “totally diminishing the reality of what I was experiencing in my body. Only to be sent to a specialist to tell me it was from my chemo.”
Kamm feels that cancer is like a burning house.
“The medical professionals see the fire and rush to put it out. They do a fantastic job putting out the fire of cancer and I am so grateful for that. They do their jobs very well.”
But she “came out of the fire with a body that will never be the same.” She has experienced neuropathy in her hands and feet. She researched ways to prevent neuropathy, like wearing ice gloves and socks during treatment.
Kamm created the Power Over Pink community as “a place to ask questions and hear from survivors who have faced this battle and won.”
Her channel has video/podcast interviews of others who have had breast cancer, beat it and are thriving.
“I want to share their stories. Why? It gives the survivor a voice in an often-voiceless system and motivates them to keep moving forward with others and regaining their life after cancer. And, if we all share what we have learned and what we experienced it will help someone else who is entering the battlefield be better equipped. And hopefully they won’t feel alone or lost. We never give any medical advice. Just warriors sharing their stories to inspire hope and encouragement and guiding others on how to be their own advocate.
“Cancer is so much more than a pink ribbon. We have power in our journey, power in our stories, power in community, and we have Power Over Pink!”
KATHY SALDANA: SURVIVOR AND PATIENT CHAMPION
Kathy Saldana, a patient experience advisor at Baptist Health Care, knows the challenges a breast cancer patient faces because she was one herself.
“After three years of dieting, exercising, losing weight and getting in shape, I felt the best about myself I had felt in decades. I got my first passport and scheduled my first cruise,” she recounted. But, on January 21, 2023 she opened her health system’s patient portal and read her biopsy result — “carcinoma.”
“I saw that word, closed the app and set out to have the best week of my life on that cruise, blissfully ignorant of what awaited me when I returned home. I told my daughter that we would enjoy the cruise, and then I would return, fight it, beat it and we would go on a victory cruise. We certainly enjoyed that cruise! Then, I returned, fought it, beat it and we went on our victory cruise in January 2024,” Saldana said.
Saldana had a lot of questions when she received her diagnosis.
“I hoped that since we found it early, I would not need chemo. That did not turn out to be the case. I was much more afraid of chemo than cancer. That remains true to this day. I had a bad cancer (triple negative), and it was very aggressive (grade three). I would need chemo, radiation and surgery.”
She also wondered if she would make it to her youngest daughter’s wedding in Michigan. (She did.) Finally, she wanted to know if her daughters needed to be worried, but luckily testing revealed it was not genetic.
Cancer taught Saldana many lessons along the way, including how strong she is. Throughout treatment she worked full time, maintained her house and mowed her own lawn. She even continued to run every day until developing neuropathy in her feet which made her too unstable to run.
“It was scary and difficult at times, but I found out that I am exactly as strong as I need to be,” Saldana said.
The second thing she learned was that even though she thought she was going through it alone, she wasn’t. Work and church friends turned up for her time and again.
“An executive director showed up for my first day of chemo, so I didn’t have to face that first, frightening moment alone,” she said, “and I even remember being wheeled down the hall before my surgery — bald, no make-up and in a hospital gown, wanting to be invisible, yet there were two team members, literally running up to me to pray for me before I went into surgery — so, I realized it’s impossible for me to ever be alone as a Baptist employee or as part of a faith community.”
Finally, she said that despite spending years working on feeling confident about her appearance, cancer stripped her of all the confidence she had gained, and it was there that she learned her value far exceeds her appearance.
“I learned that my value is deep and intrinsic. It is borne of being human, a woman, a mother, a citizen — just being,” she said, though the loss of her hair during treatment was particularly difficult.
“I treasured my signature hair. That was a profound loss — one that will take years to recover from.”
She quarantined during treatment, working from home, because she was immuno-compromised and had an end goal.
“I was laser-focused on staying well enough to make it to my daughter’s wedding in Michigan after chemo, and I knew that even a cold could compromise that. Having a supportive employer was crucial,” she said.
To other women going through breast cancer, Saldana has some advice.
“Trust the process, learn what matters to you and then fiercely defend it,” she said. “Some women do a lot of research and need to know everything possible about their diagnosis and treatment. I needed to know as little as possible. Breast cancer is a very personal journey and having control over your own treatment is important. Purpose to manage your own journey. It is yours. It is profound. Get all the help you need and refuse what is well-intended, but not helpful. Be okay asking for help and telling people, ‘No.’”
Her final bit of wisdom has to do with life after cancer.
“I have a friend who had breast cancer before I did. When I was first diagnosed, she told me something that I didn’t understand until recently. She said, ‘The people around you will get over your cancer long before you do,’ and that is the most profound truth that helps me today. As soon as you are ‘cancer-free,’ people think you are taking your victory lap and just picking up where you left off, but you are still feverishly and frantically running an unspeakably difficult race,” she said.
“When I received my good report, yes, of course I was elated and thankful, but I was still bald, weak and facing more treatment and surgery — not to mention there would be years of ‘watching’ still ahead of me. People mean well, but the journey is far from over even when you get good news. It is difficult to hear people with full heads of hair say, ‘it’s just hair — it will grow back,’ and then, they even stop saying anything at all — they just assume you’ve moved on, but you’re still looking in the mirror at a totally different person than the one who got the bad news in the beginning — different physically, spiritually and emotionally.”
Now, Saldana has joined the breast cancer support group at Baptist Hospital and found it very valuable. She has found it validating and empowering to hear others speak the thoughts in her head.
“The pink sisterhood is real, and I am very grateful for it. It means a lot to me to be surrounded by others who understand this involuntary journey.”
After realizing she had “survived” cancer, Saldana wanted to declare it, so she started looking at the available pink ribbon survivor wear, but she couldn’t find just the right thing.
“When I couldn’t find shirts or hats that I wanted to wear, or even could wear on a daily basis, I started thinking about the ease of wearing, and giving, a lapel pin,” she said. “I knew I wanted to declare victory, so I designed a lapel pin with, ‘veni, vidi, vici’ [I came, I saw, I conquered] and the pink ribbon. I had the pins manufactured and donated them to Baptist Cancer Services for other pink sisters to have.”
Saldana wants to leave a legacy for others going through what she did.
“I hope the day comes when induction into this dreaded and beautiful pink sisterhood stops forever. In the meantime, I want my forced membership to mean something. I want to help others — it matters — it brings meaning to this path I never would have chosen, but have been graced to walk, nonetheless.”
RESOURCES FOR PATIENTS AND CAREGIVERS
Are you looking for resources to help you, a family member or friend who is battling breast cancer? Want to donate to a related cause? Here are some examples of local and national organizations that do research, provide support or sell or donate products to help.
There are many more resources in addition to these listed, including several local places that do cancer-specific lymphatic drainage, acupuncture and massage. As always, consult your doctor before starting any treatment.
American Cancer Society/Making Strides: The American Cancer Society has been providing resources and doing research on all types of cancer for over 100 years. The ACS Making Strides movement “raises lifesaving funds that support breast cancer patients, survivors, thrivers and caregivers through every step of the journey.” They have one-on-one breast cancer patient support services and a 24/7 helpline. The local Making Strides event this year will be on Saturday, October 26. For more information, contact Melanie Row at melanie.row@cancer.org; 850-407-4735; or donate at Making Strides of Pensacola, P.O. Box 17127, Tampa, FL 33682
Breast Cancer Research Foundation: Nonprofit committed to prevention and research for a cure. Donate or shop for “pink” gifts at bcrf.org.
Cleaning for a Reason: Provides free housecleaning services for cancer patients. Visit cleaningforareason.org to learn more.
EBeauty: Provides donated wigs to cancer patients. Visit Ebeauty.com.
Imerman Angels: One-on-one cancer support group; Learn more at imermanangels.org.
Keeping Abreast Foundation: A project of the local Krewe du YaYas that provides screening, preventative programs and assistance. Learn more at keepingabreastfoundation.org.
Living the Ribbon Life: Provides fitness support after cancer treatment. Learn more at livingtheribbonlife.com.
Pensacola Breast Cancer Association: Nonprofit that provides education and screening for local women in need. They have created a brochure for anyone who is diagnosed with breast cancer to have a list of all resources Pensacola has to offer the moment they are diagnosed. They also have a wealth of information on their website at Pensacolabreastcancerassociation.com.
Pensacola Permanent Makeup: Provides eyebrow and areola tattooing. Learn more at pensacolapmu.com.
Sisters Network, Inc.: A national African American breast cancer survivorship organization. Visit sistersnetworkinc.org.
Susan G. Komen: Addresses breast cancer research, community health, global outreach and public policy initiatives. Visit komen.org for information.
