Woman shares her battle with cancer
Stamp Out Breast Cancer Event raises funds for support
MOSES LAKE — The Stamp Out Breast Cancer Event raised money for the Moses Lake Breast Cancer Support Group Saturday at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church.
There was also a guest speaker who shared her personal experience with cancer.
"We raised somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,700 last night," volunteer Jan Przybylski said.
The money was raised with a $20 entry fee and a silent auction. Candles, lotion, blankets, scarves and scrap booking materials were sold by auction. There were also 12 tables for participants to make several crafts, including greeting cards.
During the evening, Tanya Prickett shared her personal struggle with breast cancer with more than 60 people in attendance. She also shared her decision on what she did after her recovery.
It all started at a doctors appointment.
"Do I really have to get a mammogram every year?" Prickett said she asked her doctor.
It had been one year and five months since her last mammogram, she added. Since she was overdue, she got one.
Prickett began to worry because the technician kept taking more and more x-rays of her breast but was not telling her why. Prickett finally asked to examine the x-rays herself. Being a veterinarian, she is familiar with x-rays, she said.
"I could see it like night and day," she said.
There was a mass in her right breast.
The next day at work, she recalled being bit by a pit bull in the same spot several months earlier where the mass showed up on her x-rays. She relaxed a little and decided it probably wasn't cancer and probably a build up of tissue from the dog bite. Soon after her resolution, her doctor called.
"Tanya, you need surgery," she recalled.
The following week she went to Seattle for surgery.
"I remember sitting in the parking lot wanting to throw up," she said. "I didn't want to go to the meeting because I feared what they had to say."
It turned out to be a much more positive experience than she initially thought, she added.
She said her doctor told her with surgery alone she would have a 70 percent cure rate and with chemotherapy and radiation treatment, it would be even higher.
The surgery did not go as well as her doctor planned. Her doctor was not able to get all the cancer cells out of her breast.
The failed surgery resulted in travel back and forth from Moses Lake to Seattle for many more surgeries. This lead to the eventual removal of her entire right breast.
After the removal she had to give herself shots in the stomach for a treatment to stimulate her white blood cell count. She thought with her veterinary experience, it might be easy to administer the shot herself.
"It was pure torture to give myself a shot. I would sit there and grit my teeth and my husband would laugh at me," she said with a laugh.
Due to the chemotherapy and radiation treatments, she began to lose her hair. She experienced several sleepless nights because she woke up covered in her own hair, she said. She got a wig but only wore it once, she added.
Then she made a decision against her doctor's opinion.
"I said you're taking them both," she said. "Three strikes and you're out. I'm doing it my way."
She had the doctor remove her left breast too. She did not want to deal with reconstructive therapy, she added.
She chose to have the breasts removed because it can be difficult to detect the cancer if it returns, she said. The cancer could develop behind the implant. She also added many women have operations every 10 years to maintain the implants.
Moses Lake resident Zola Basart stood up in the crowd to agree with Prickett. Basart has experienced numerous painful problems with her implants and seven surgeries.
"If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't do it," Basart said. "I would never go through it again."
Prickett chose to take a simpler route, prosthetic breasts, she said.
"You better tell me if they're crooked though," she added.
Prickett has been clear of cancer for more than a year.
For more information e-mail Basart at azbasart@wmconnect.com.