Life-saving detection
Hot Springs woman finds breast cancer early
It was a typical Memorial Day weekend for Jennifer Winston. The 27-year-old Hot Springs resident was enjoying a weekend at the lake with cookouts and swimming with her family when the unexpected happened. While drying off,Winston noticed something unusual: a marble-sized hard spot in the upper right quadrant of her left breast. “I knew that wasn’t right,” she said. She decided to make a doctor’s appointment immediately to check it out. She said she wasn’t expecting it to be a big deal, but her doctor said the lump was weird.The doctor ordered an ultrasound, after which doctors decided the lump was abnormal and wanted to remove it. Within three weeks of discovering the lump, it was removed. Winston’s doctors told her the lump was ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which, according to the National Institute of Health, is a noninvasive condition where abnormal cells are found
It was new to me. I was pretty positive through the whole thing. I think that’s what helped me through.” JENNIFER WINSTON Hot Springs
in the lining of a breast duct. Doctors told Winston that this condition is typically found in older patients. She then had a second lumpectomy, during which doctors removed a tennis-ball-sized portion of her breast. After a closer look, they discovered that she had invasive ductal carcinoma, the most common type of breast cancer. Because Winston was so young, the cancer was especially aggressive, so she decided to have a double mastectomy. She had the option of only having a single mastectomy, but she said she didn’t want to risk the cancer coming back in the other breast. “Get rid of them both,” she said. Winston’s doctors have no idea what caused the cancer. There is no history of cancer in her family, and she doesn’t have the breast-cancer gene. Her doctors said it may have been environmental factors. Winston, who is typically a bright and upbeat person, had never had to deal with cancer. “It was new to me,” she said. “I was pretty positive through the whole thing. I think that’s what helped me through.” Her treatment was fairly rapid. She found the lump at the end of May 2010, had the two lumpectomies that June and the double mastectomy in July. In fact, Winston and her family celebrated her son’s first birthday the day before her mastectomy. Winston, who works as a human resources manager at Lowe’s, began chemotherapy that August. She said her co-workers were very supportive during her treatment. They offered her anything she needed, took up a collection and brought her things. The chemotherapy left Winston vulnerable to sickness, so she had to avoid being around other people. Her mother, Barbara Davis, worked for a local lawyer who was very family-oriented, so Davis was able to come by every morning to take care of Winston while her husband, Curtis Winston, took their son, Reese, to day care. Jennifer Winston said the hardest part was having a child who was so young at the time because she risked getting sick. “I couldn’t pick him up or love on him like normal,” she said. Winston said it was also a blessing that her son was so young because he didn’t know what was going on and doesn’t remember everything from that time. She is also grateful to have a husband who was so understanding and helped with whatever she needed. Her friends were also a great help, she said. Winston received all her treatment at Mercy Health Center (now CHI St.Vincent). She said the relationships she built with her doctor, Steven Halter, M.D., and her oncologist, Manjusha Kota, M.D., where fantastic. She said she still sees them every now and then around town. As for advice for other women, she said women should start doing the process of breast self-exams as early as age 25. She said she is very lucky that she caught her cancer when she did, because if she hadn’t, it probably would have killed her because it was so aggressive. Since her treatment, Winston still has a clean bill of health and still goes for regular checkups. “Just take it one day at a time,” she said..