Debra MacDougal
Survivor is grateful for financial help it got from Saint Agatha, other foundations
By Mary Beth Roach
Debra MacDougal, 66, had her regular annual mammogram in the spring of 2023.
When the results came back a few weeks later, her doctors told her they wanted her to have a sonogram.
Following that, she said, the doctor immediately suggested a biopsy. After a series of other tests, it was confirmed that she had breast cancer, specifically, invasive ductal carcinoma stage 1A.
“When I was first told that, I did not cry,” she said. “I was at peace because I look at it this way — if you do have it, what can you do about it?”
As MacDougal sees it, everyone has challenges in life.
“We’re given those challenges to make us stronger and to learn something from it,” she said.
After the diagnosis, things moved quickly. In July, she met with her surgical team, and on Aug. 24, she had a mastectomy. Earlier testing had shown that there were three masses, two on the top of her breast, the other on the lower part. And because she’s small-breasted, a lumpectomy was not feasible, she explained.
During the surgery, her doctor also removed two lymph nodes and sent them for a biopsy.
As explained by the Mayo Clinic, a sentinel node biopsy is a procedure to see if cancer has spread. It can tell whether the cancer cells have broken away from where they started and spread to the lymph nodes. Sentinel node biopsy is often used in people who have breast cancer, melanoma and other types of cancer.
In MacDougal’s case, the first lymph node had signs of cancer; the second did not.
MacDougal is on a hormone medication that she said she needs to take for five years. Her doctor has told her it’s hard to say she’s in remission yet because she’s still got four more years on the medication.
However, MacDougal said her prognosis is very good; tests in May were great and more follow-up testing is slated for November.
Before surgery, she told her doctor she did not want reconstruction, concerned about any repercussions that might happen and because, at that time, there was not a reconstructive surgeon near enough to her home in West Monroe in southern Oswego County.
She said she did have concerns about how she was to cover her bills. She was able to get financial support — and some moral support, too — from the Saint Agatha Foundation, CancerConnects and the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
She neither smokes nor drinks. She also spends a great deal of time exploring nature around her home.
Recently, she took part in a documentary filmed for the Saint Agatha Foundation, titled “Impact of Our Mission,” which will premiere at the foundation’s gala on Oct. 24. The film, produced by Johnson Studio & Camera, features testimonies given by patients who have been reached by Saint Agatha Foundation’s mission.
In a follow-up to this interview, MacDougal further expressed her gratitude to these organizations in an email.
“I feel everyone must be his or her own foundation, love thyself completely, surrender and live in the moment no matter what comes their way. It is when one does that, that their whole being changes and the energy that goes out to others comes back to them. You receive people around you with beautiful energy, such as doctors, nurses, CancerConnects, Saint Agatha Foundation, Susan G. Komen. I think every individual with breast cancer should be in touch with these beautiful, supportive and caring organizations for they will ease their burden so that they may heal and just be ‘in the moment’ with their healing and recovery.”
In addition, MacDougal noted that “the breast cancer patient also gives something to all they come in contact with and that is strength, love, understanding, courage and, yes, happiness.”
Lilie Welych
A ‘thriver’ describes her cancer journey
By Mary Beth Roach
Lilie Welych considers herself a “thriver.”
And she proudly wears an alphabet-bead bracelet that spells out TNBC THRIVER.
TNBC stands for triple negative breast cancer, which she was diagnosed with two years ago.
Today, that thriver is in remission and NED (no evidence of disease).
She said the experiences over the past two years have given her a greater appreciation of her blessings. She is involved in numerous support groups online; she hopes to spread the message of services and resources available to other breast cancer survivors and she wants to help start a local support group specifically for those with the same type of cancer she had.
But it has been a harrowing journey for the 68-year-old Warners resident who was diagnosed in December of 2022 with stage 3 TNBC in her left breast.
She had gone for her annual mammogram in November of 2021. In April of 2022, she had a sonogram, which she routinely gets because she has fiber cystic disease and dense breasts.
Neither test showed anything.
Six months later, when she went for her annual mammogram on Nov. 11, 2022, she said she expected everything to be fine. She was told there were irregularities and that she needed further testing. Her radiologist said it was a mass.
“I was sort of in shock; certainly not in denial, but I hadn’t expected this,” she said.
Especially since there was no history in her immediate family and there had been nothing on her sonogram.
It proves, Welych explained, how aggressive this form of breast cancer can be. The American Cancer Society has noted that TNBC is different from other invasive breast cancers in that it grows and spreads so fast.
In early December, she met with a surgeon and had genetic testing done. Since she has a daughter, she was concerned for her sake, but she tested negative.
By the end of December, Welych had had a port implanted and chemotherapy began, with the aim of shrinking the tumor to facilitate surgery later. For the following 12 weeks, she had weekly infusions, with each one lasting three to four hours. In addition, every three weeks she needed a Keytruda infusion. Following that series of treatments, she started on a more potent regimen the next week. And because the chemo can decrease your white blood cells, she was receiving shots of Neulasta.
She lost all of her body hair, even inside her nose!
Since the chemo didn’t put her in remission, she underwent surgery on July 3, opting for a single mastectomy, instead of a lumpectomy, to make sure that they got it all. Eight lymph nodes were also removed.
For several months following the surgery, she had to do radiation followed by oral chemo because the TNBC can have rogue cancer cells. Because lymph nodes had to be removed, she has to do certain exercises and wear a compression sleeve two to four hours a day to facilitate drainage of lymphatic fluid. She sees a lymphedema specialist every few months.
As for her journey, she explained that her body is different than it was before and emotionally, she’s very appreciative of her blessings. She credits her husband, family, good friends and her team at Hematology-Oncology Associates. And she continues to find help among online support groups she has discovered through the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation and the TNBCThriver.org. She plans to take part in the YMCA’s Live Strong program and this past summer, she spent a weekend with other women cancer survivors at a special wellness retreat at Camp Good Days and Special Times, located near Rochester.
As for the future, she said, “The prognosis is live your life one day at a time.”
Or perhaps, thrive each day would be more apt in Welych’s case.
Kristin Merola
The ‘light at the end of the tunnel’
By Mary Beth Roach
It was 2021. Kristin Merola, then 37, was navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, along with her son, Ethan, who was 13 at the time. She was also planning her wedding that fall.
And then the Cicero resident was diagnosed with breast cancer — more specifically invasive ductile carcinoma in situ (DCIS).
A DCIS is considered precancerous and is classified as stage 0.
Merola said that for years she had had a lump in her right breast. Because there is a history of cancer in her family (her grandmother died from cancer and her mother is now nine years cancer-free), she had had it tested and was told it was merely dense breast tissue. In June and December of 2020, her mammogram and sonogram showed nothing. She wasn’t due for another mammogram until December of 2021.
But during the summer, while trying to lose weight for the wedding, Merola noticed that the lump appeared to have gotten bigger. She thought that perhaps it just looked larger because she had lost weight.
Still, she was concerned, especially due to her family history. So she had it checked out.
She had an ultrasound, after which her doctor scheduled an MRI and within two hours, she was told that the mass “was highly suspicious.”
“I was devastated,” she said. Her mother had been diagnosed with the same kind of cancer several years prior. Moreover, she said that after a close friend and her future father-in-law had both received their cancer diagnoses, their conditions worsened quickly.
Her doctor advised her not to Google anything, since it could cause her added stress. She didn’t, but even without internet searches there was enough to fuel her anxiety. She was the mother of a teenage son and a bride with a wedding to plan. She was coping with the impact of the pandemic, worrying that she might get COVID-19 from her then-fiancé, Jeremy, who works with the public; and she wondered about her own mortality. The isolation forced by the pandemic compounded the situation, she said, leaving her too much time alone with her thoughts.
A biopsy a few days later confirmed that she had DCIS. She said that her doctor was concerned because while she had seen DCIS throughout an entire breast before, she had never seen it just in one spot. Because the lump, or tumor, was so big, a lumpectomy was not an option. She opted for a double mastectomy in October, about three weeks after her wedding.
She and Jeremy were married in September of 2021 and while she said it was a beautiful day, it was overshadowed with thoughts of the upcoming surgery, which she had on Oct. 12.
The final pathology report came back and while it showed that the cancer had not spread to the lymph nodes, the HER2 came back negative, and the tumor showed that the invasive cancerous part was 9 mm, which made her stage 1.
She was sent to an oncologist. Her cancer was feeding on estrogen and progesterone, so she was given tamoxifen for 10 years and she’s in a clinical study for Lupron, which she receives every three months. It puts her into medical menopause, with the shot of lowering hormones.
At this time, her oncologist suggested that she didn’t need chemo, but it was also recommended that she talk with another oncologist for a second opinion.
A doctor at Sloan-Kettering thought she should do it. She then underwent another test, which would determine the makeup of the tumor and the rate that it could return. Her results were in the low recurrence score and because the cancer had not spread to her lymph nodes, she opted not to have chemo.
She had implants done in January of 2022.
After the surgery, Merola said she was still plagued with fears about the cancer coming back. She has been able to find a professional to help her with that anxiety.
That has made a world of difference for her, she said. While she fears a recurrence, it is not ever-present in her mind. She’s back to work part-time at A&E SNY Surgery Center; she finds great comfort in a support group through the Hematology-Oncology Associates; talking with other friends and acquaintances who are cancer survivors; journaling; working out with an online trainer, and hitting the gym with a friend, which not only helps physically but emotionally as well.
“I never thought there’d be a light at the end of the tunnel,” she said.