‘I did everything right and this still happened’
Deirdre Parr is, by her own admission, a one-tit wonder.
Sitting in the living room of her home in the Auckland suburb of Pt Chevalier, the 57-year-old lets off a peal of laughter.
There’s no other response, really, when you had breast cancer for more than a decade before anyone noticed it.
Parr counts herself incredibly lucky that an industrious surgeon insisted on more invasive tests to detect her cancer and remove it – not relying on textbook-perfect mammograms and ultrasounds dating back 16 years.
Parr has always had what are described as ‘‘dense’’ breasts. Breast tissue is made up of milk glands, milk ducts and supportive tissue (dense breast tissue), and fatty tissue.
She cannot believe the Ministry of Health would consider not advising women with dense breasts they are at higher risk.
‘‘Ignorance is not bliss – knowledge is power. They are scared of frightening people with too much information, but if you don’t have the information you can’t actually act on it if you wish to do so.’’
Parr was 27 when she first discovered a lump in her breast while on holiday in Spain. She went to a doctor, who declared it benign.
Back in New Zealand, her GP sent her for mammograms and ultrasounds every couple of years, which kept coming back clear as Parr’s breasts grew harder and harder. She describes them as feeling like an un-ripe peach.
‘‘In the end I couldn’t tell if there was a lump or there wasn’t, my whole breast felt lumpy. This became my normal, and I was doing everything right – I was having my mammograms, I was having my ultrasounds. I wasn’t a heavy drinker and I led a healthy lifestyle.’’
In 2002 her GP insisted on a physical exam, and referred Parr to a specialist. The mammogram, ultrasound and three core biopsy results came back clear – but the diligent doctor persevered with a surgical biopsy, which detected a 4.5cm tumour in her right breast.
‘‘I was very frightened, there was a part of me that was very disbelieving, and I was angry,’’ Parr says. ‘‘I had been doing everything I was told to do and this had still happened. If I had known that the density itself was a risk factor I would have been more aware, I would have known I was high-risk.’’
Surgeons told her the stage two cancer had likely been there for 10 years or more. A surgical biopsy or another screening method, such as an MRI scan or 3D digital tomosynthesis, could have picked it up at an earlier stage (it should be noted that although Parr experienced lumpy, hard breasts, density cannot be felt).
She embarked on an intensive chemotherapy and radiotherapy regime, having a mastectomy and a breast reconstruction and undergoing hormone therapy before being cleared.
In 2014 she noticed what felt like a pull in her chest and doctors found the tumour had regrown. Part of her pectoral muscle had to be removed, along with her reconstructed breast. Then, last year, a lentil-sized regrowth was found in the scar of her previous surgery.
Parr now accepts she will live under the shadow of breast cancer her whole life.
‘‘My life has changed forever, I can’t go back. With cancer, you go from being this capable person in charge of your life to someone who is being told where to go and what to do. It’s knocked my confidence really badly. I used to be a project manager and now I can’t organise my way out of a paper bag.’’