TRUSTING HER GUT, SHE SPOKE UP
The tattoo with her cancer-free date helps start conversations
After the breast surgeon checked the painful lump in Semaria Cobb’s breast with ultrasound and palpitation, she thought it looked and felt like a routine cyst, not a cancerous tumor. Usually if a lump hurt, it wasn’t cancer.
She suggested Cobb return in three months to have it checked again.
Cobb remained quiet, thinking, “No way.” “I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I thought, ‘This is going to drive me insane,’” she says. She couldn’t wait three months. If it was cancer, she thought, three months could make a life-changing difference.
“When is the next available appointment?” the Hartford resident asked.
Soon, the surgeon performed a lumpectomy of the tumor. Cobb had Stage 3 breast cancer. The breast surgeon expressed surprise, says Cobb, and moved “full-steam ahead” with another lumpectomy to try to remove the entire tumor. It turned out to be ductal carcinoma in-situ, and the cancer was in her entire breast, she says.
Her surgeon told her that breast had to be removed and gave her the choice of a single or double mastectomy. Removing both breasts reduced the risk of recurrence, her surgeon told her.
A single mother of a 12-year-old at the time, Cobb says she didn’t hesitate. She chose the more aggressive approach to have both breasts removed.
Her daughter asked only two questions: Are you going to lose your hair? Are you going to die?
“No, not if I can help it,” Cobb told her. She’s now 50, and her daughter, who graduated from college with a degree in biology, wants to work in a lab helping to find a cure for breast cancer.
How did Cobb know she couldn’t wait? After all, she had little risk of cancer: She didn’t drink or smoke and had no family history of cancer.
Long before she felt the lump, she had been attending breast cancer luncheons at her church and participating in breast cancer walks, where she had learned the importance of self-advocacy from breast cancer survivors. She’d heard stories of clean mammograms despite the presence of cancer.
Because she trusted her gut and spoke up, Cobb had a double mastectomy two months after she first felt the lump. The date she became cancer-free is tattooed on her forearm: May 24, 2007. It’s there to celebrate her health and to open the door to conversation about cancer.
“I wanted to make sure it’s right there so people can see it. Cancer is not always a death sentence. I’m here and I’m living proof,” she says. People ask if she knows someone who’s a survivor.
“I know plenty of survivors, and I’m one myself,” she responds.
Cobb knew she was stubborn and independent, she says, but cancer showed her how strong she is. She read that cancer is 90 percent attitude and 10 percent treatment, so she approached her six surgeries — lumpectomies, mastectomy and reconstruction — with a positive attitude.
“I’m still here, still breathing, still smiling, still having a lot of fun,” she says. “It’s not always a death sentence. I am strong with my faith. I have trust in my doctors. I have faith in my family and friends.”
Despite being self-sufficient, while recovering from the surgeries, she turned to her family and friends and asked for what she needed, including help with meals and laundry.
As soon as she healed, she returned to her receptionist’s job in an OB-GYN office. Today, she’s a call center representative with Hartford HealthCare Medical Group.
“I said to my mom, ‘Aren’t you glad I’m stubborn? That stubbornness is what saved me,’” she says. “Standing up and saying, ‘This is my body, my life, my choice,’ saved me.
The doctors are there to help you through your journey. They aren’t the ones to start your journey. You do. I have a choice. I made the choice to save my life.”