Cancer survivor Ana Pelayo turns fear to strength

Wh e n Calexico resident, Ana Pelayo first discovered a lump, the size of a little ball in her breast, she immediately found herself connecting the fear of cancer to a larger fear of death.

“I thought of the opportunity to continue living because it’s like death is right there,” Pelayo said. “You don’t know if you are going to die.”

It was 2016 and the then 37-yearold Pelayo understood that regardless of not having a family history of breast cancer, the potential of discovering cancer and it resulting in death was a real possibility.

Two years before discovering the mystery lump, her father had lost his own battle with a rare type of brain cancer, an experience that left Pelayo significantly more health conscience.

“We weren’t really aware of cancer, but I think it was just the beginning of the things that were going to change in our lives,” Pelayo said thinking of her family’s journey.

Pelayo, a mother to three young children, jumped into action and began to contact all her regular physicians about the lump and her need to be checked out. The fear of potentially missing time in her children’s lives was only fueled more so by the truly disheartening response she received from family doctors.

“At the time, the rule was that you had to be 40 years old or older in order to have a mammogram, or you were expected to have a relative that had breast cancer, so I wasn’t allowed one because I didn’t qualify for any of those things,” Pelayo said.

She even tried to plead with another local facility, but they, too, turned her away.

“They told me there was nothing they could do, even if you feel the little lump and if your dad passed away from cancer there is nothing we can do, so try and find an answer in another place — we cannot help you,” she recalled.

It was then Pelayo first contacted the executive director of Imperial Valley Cancer Support Center, Oreda Chin, in search of hope. IVCSC, formerly Between Women Inc., is a nonprofit organization committed to both the physical and emotional well-being of Imperial Valley residents living with cancer.

“The other facilities had just knocked me out,” Pelayo said. “I had started to cry because I thought what if I have cancer and I’m going to pass away, but when she answered the phone, she told me I didn’t have to worry about it and that if I felt a lump she was going to help me.”

Pelayo recalled having spoke on a Wednesday and receiving a call back from Chin on Friday with the hope she had so desperately needed. Chin informed Pelayo that a mammogram was scheduled for her on Tuesday so she could get some answers.

“She just told me, I’m going to trust you if you say you feel something, I’m going to go for it and she did,” Pelayo said.

As life would have it, Pelayo’s lump would force her to make an emergency trip to Pioneers Memorial Hospital just a day after speaking with Chin.

“I thought maybe I had pulled a muscle by my breast, but it got really sore where the lump was and red,” she said. “I couldn’t move my back.”

After several tests and an overnight stay, doctors had brought in a surgeon who explained to Pelayo that they didn’t believe it to be cancer, but that they could attempt to drain the lump. Following that operation, Pelayo’s surgeon returned with news that although she had drained all the liquid in the lump, it was regenerating the liquid on its own.

In the coming days, new test results provided physicians enough information to suggest that a tumor approximately 8 centimeters had been the cause of her pain. Pelayo’s surgeon explained that the tumor would need to be removed and she would be losing one of her breasts.

About two weeks later, Pelayo had her operation and to the surgeon’s surprise the mystery lump wasn’t 8 centimeters, it was 12 centimeters and weighed almost 3 pounds.

Although the surgeon hadn’t seen anything like her tumor before, she told Pelayo that it would be lab tested to know for sure. A year later, Pelyao would get the results that would confirm her suspicions all along, her lump was breast cancer.

Thankfully, Pelayo didn’t spend the year of not knowing unprepared, her surgeon made sure to give her all the information and strength to believe that she would come out this process alright, regardless of the lab results.

“She told me, ‘You have to be mentally prepared and physically prepared because a lot of things are going to change,’” Pelayo recalled.

Within a brief moment Pelayo’s surgeon told her everything she might need to know when it comes to navigating life both physically and mentally following the removal of her breast.

“She prepared me for everything in one single day,” Pelayo said. “She told me… you need to be prepared because you are going to enter another world, but you are going to be OK.”

In the weeks and months that followed their conversation, Pelayo began to re-plan her life. She was no longer able to work in the retail job she previously held because she was no longer able to lift more than 5 pounds.

“I needed to start looking for another opportunity,” she said. “I had to