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Beating the odds
Topics: breast cancer, October, pink, women, fight
Posted by LisaW Wed Nov 30, -0001 00:00:00 PST
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0 responses 0 comments Facing breast cancer has bonded three Northwest women together unlike any other circumstances they have faced in their lives.

Brigette Hamblet, 37; Leea Wimbish, 35; and Janerl Lampson, 38, all met through Links for Life, a Bakersfield organization that provides support to those facing breast cancer.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It’s a disease impacting many people in our community. Based on 2006 figures, it is expected that 335 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in Kern County and 81 people will die from the disease this year.

All three women were in their early to mid 30s when they were diagnosed with the disease. Even though 77 percent of women diagnosed are under 50 years of age, it is still considered rare to be diagnosed prior to age 40 or menopause. So Hamblet, Wimbish and Lampson found themselves in a very unique situation.

Hamblet has been cancer free since February of this year, while Wimbish and Lampson are still in treatment. The three get together for lunch at least once a month to go over their treatment, side effects, life in general and anything new that they may have learned.

Recently The Northwest Voice spoke to all three women about their experience in facing the disease.

Q. How old were you when you got your diagnosis?
Hamblet: 35
Wimbish: 33
Lampson: 36

Q. How did you find out that you had breast cancer?
Hamblet: I was working out with my husband and when I got home I was really sore in a weird way. I had always been vigilant about my breast self exams, so when I got home and found the lump I knew it wasn’t normal. It didn’t feel right. My gynecologist got me in that day for an appointment. At first I was in denial and then I was really upset. So upset that the doctor almost drove me home himself. I wanted an oncologist who only specialized in breast cancer, so we went down to UCLA. That way I could get up-to-the-minute information about treatment options and not just something they read in a newsletter that might work. My husband and I called our two-hour trips to UCLA our “chemo dates.” It was a quiet moment to reflect on cancer and our marriage. To really face each other and say, “We’re Steve and Brigette and we’re going to get through this.”
Wimbish: Well,  I was pretty unique in that I was diagnosed when I was pregnant. The doctors induced my labor at 38 weeks so that I could begin treatment sooner. I literally gave birth on Sept. 10, was officially diagnosed Sept. 13, and had my first round of chemo Sept. 21. When I first found a lump my doctor brushed me off and told me that the changes were due to being pregnant and that I was too young to have cancer. I finally got my doctor to agree to a biopsy. So when I went in for the biopsy the surgeon also tried to brush me off.  At that point I had found another lump under my arm. Nobody took me seriously. I met with the surgeon to get the results and he told me that they had found it early and that it was contained so I had nothing to worry about. One of my good friends is a pediatrician and told me to get a second opinion. She sent me to Los Angeles to someone she knew who specialized in the disease. They told me that in fact they did not catch the cancer early and were afraid it had already begun spreading and that pregnancy often masks the effects of the cancer.  Also breast cancer tends to be more aggressive in younger, pre-menopausal women because they have estrogen that feeds the disease.
Lampson: I have a very aggressive cancer. I had a mammogram done on a spot that I found. I was three lymph node positive and the cancer had already spread even though I only had a lump that was 0.7 centimeters in diameter.

Q. What was that diagnosis like for you?
Hamblet: Finding out was a shock. I have a family history of ovarian cancer and a gene in the family that causes it. We’re one of the biggest families that are carriers of this gene. So I expected an ovarian cancer diagnosis, not breast cancer. I never thought that it was possible. When I got this I was in disbelief, I thought this disease was for older women. I thought, “I’m too young to have this.”
Wimbish: My first thought was for my children. I really thought I was going to die. Then you start to grieve the things you are afraid of losing, like first birthdays, first days of school, weddings and all that.

Q. How has treatment and recovery been?
Hamblet: You think after your last chemo that you are going to be yourself again. A week goes by, then months, and you don’t feel that way. So you have to understand that it takes one or two years to get your body back to a normal level and you are never going to be back to where you were prior to cancer. That’s the frustrating part. I’ll be fine and do everything I can one week and then for the next two weeks I am so exhausted.
Wimbish: Around Christmas last year I had switched drugs for the treatment. The first cycle went fine except for a weird rash on my hands that developed. The next cycle made me hurt all the time. My fingertips hurt so badly that it felt like they had been slammed in a door. I couldn’t change my son’s diaper. I woke up the morning I was supposed to head down to Los Angeles for another round of treatment and I told my husband, “I can’t do this.” I ended up going to LA that day for a doctor’s appointment and he took me off the drugs so that I could heal and moved up some of my surgeries. So for the holidays I had a break and didn’t have to start chemo again until February. Now I’m in a clinical trial for the PARP inhibitor and it has been great. There are hardly any side effects and since I finished my last round I’ve had two months of clean tests. Because I am in a clinical trial there is no real protocol for the treatment. In six months I will be re-evaluated and have blood work and labs done once a month until then.
Lampson: I am part of the 1 percent of the population that gets blood clots as a result of the treatment. I’ve had almost every kind of side effect they list. It’s very frustrating, but it’s just one more thing. I just have to put it in the Lord’s hands.

Q. Did you tell your kids? If so, how did you go about telling them?
Hamblet: We did tell our kids. I was treated at UCLA and the Todd Madigan Center there has great resources for kids. They had a children’s book about the “chemo shark” which helped to explain things. We told them that the chemo shark was going to go in Mom’s body and fight the disease. It put it down on their level so they could comprehend. We tried to make it fun for the kids. When we went to Links for Life to pick out wigs, we took the kids and I tried on all kinds of wigs so they would have some idea of how I was going to look. Our son would run around with my wigs on in the morning sometimes just for fun. I saw my grandmother and how she was so sick after chemo. I aspired not to be that way. I decorated the house, volunteered at school and many more things in between my chemo appointments. I was not going to be sick and lay on the couch. I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me.
Wimbish: No, I didn’t. They were simply too young to understand. Gradually through treatment we explained that I was taking medicine to fight bad cells. We explained that it would make Mommy sick sometimes. When it came to hair loss I asked my oldest if it was OK for me to give my hair away because I saw a girl without any hair. So we shaved my hair off and explained that I was giving it away so they didn’t have to deal with trying to understand my hair loss. I’m in the middle of reconstruction right now and one day my daughter asked me where my boobs were, but we just didn’t make a big deal about it.
Lampson: We did tell our kids, but it was really too complicated for them to understand. We basically told them that mommy has breast cancer and that it is a disease you may have heard of. That it was something we would go through day by day, that people would bring food over and they would get to stay the night at friends’ houses. I didn’t want it to be in their face everyday because they were a little older than Leea and Brigette’s kids. They were at an age where they would remember how I handled it. I didn’t want them to see me crawl into a hole and be all “poor me” about it. Personally I hate October and Breast Cancer Awareness Month because you read about it everywhere and see it everywhere. I was at the Clinique counter getting makeup and I saw something about it. I can’t escape it, it’s just one more reminder. You see the things you can do to prevent it and what if you’ve done all that and you still get it? That’s me. I’m kind of the incognito breast cancer patient. No one really knows that I have it. I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me. I have a wonderful support group and church family. I still sing on the praise team every Sunday. Lots of people see me there and I don’t think they know. My kids have never seen me without my wig and my makeup on. I’m still very involved at my kids’ school and at church. I don’t want to be known for it. I’ve handled it differently and tried to keep life as normal as possible and I haven’t skipped a beat. That was what was good for me. If I was more out there with it I wouldn’t have handled it as well I don’t think.

Q.  Are you afraid your children will have to face this in their lifetime too?
Hamblet: Both of our children can inherit the gene, there’s a 50 percent chance, and it isn’t just my daughter we are worried about. My son could also have it. We just had a male family member test positive for the gene on my side.
Wimbish: I am positive for the same gene that Brigette has which causes ovarian and breast cancer. Initially, I didn’t think I had the gene because there is no history of ovarian cancer in my family. Then my first thought was for my daughter. It doesn’t manifest itself until the late teens, so hopefully 15 years from now there will be a cure if she has to face this.
Lampson: I’m just glad it’s me and not my kids. I’ve seen the kids that have cancer and I don’t think I could watch that happen to my kids. So you see your blessings in a weird way.

Q. What has your friendship meant for you and your family?
Hamblet: It’s just been great to have someone to talk to that knows what you are going through. You get mentored on how to deal with it and then you can turn around and mentor someone else. My husband really learned what to expect and was able to pass that along to Leea’s husband. He was able to find out that when I say “I’m tired” that I really mean it and that even though I try to act like everything is fine, that isn’t what’s really going on.
Wimbish: It’s been nice to have mentors that have been there done that. With chemo nobody knows how you are going to react so it is nice to know about some of the side effects that other people have gone through so you know what is normal.  At first I would hear Jan and Brigette talking about all the medications and the side effects and I thought, “Oh my god, what am I getting myself into?” I think it made me more scared, but then it was nice to know what to expect. For Jan, if there was a side effect listed, she went through it. So I knew what days to expect to hurt. One person in our family that benefited the most from our friendship was my husband. Suddenly he was thrust into the role of caretaker and Brigette’s husband had already done the same thing. So it really benefitted my husband to have someone tell him what he needed to do and what to expect.
Lampson: It’s been wonderful. A great friendship. In regards to treatment timelines, Brigette was about five months ahead of me and I was about five months ahead of Leea. So we each had someone to talk to about drugs and symptoms. The more people we know our age the better because everything is totally different for people at our age. They don’t really know a whole lot about our age group. We keep hearing, “Well, you're not the norm, you’re not in menopause, you’re not 40.” There’s always that qualifier for everything, “You’re not the norm, you’re too young.”

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