Transcription:
How to Handle a Cancer Diagnosis as a Mom with Young Children

Melanie Cole, MS (Host): Welcome to Its Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. I'm Melanie Cole. And today, we're talking about how to handle a cancer diagnosis as a mom with young children. Joining me is Amanda Kasahara. She's a pre-op and PACU nurse with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital.

Amanda, thank you so much for joining us today. As we get into this podcast today, can you please tell us your story and how you came to Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital as a breast cancer patient? Tell us a little bit about your experience.

Amanda Kasahara: I have, you know, tried to be responsible and get my mammograms and checkups routinely. And with COVID, you know, things kind of fell by the wayside for 18 months. They weren't really scheduling those procedures for a while. And then, when they did come back up, I scheduled an appointment with my doctor and came in There really wasn't anything that I was concerned about. I just wanted to make sure that I was on top of my stuff. My mammogram was normal and then I had an ultrasound done. And when they did the ultrasound, there was an area of concern that the radiologist insisted on biopsying. And I kind of dismissed it. You know, it was my 45th birthday. We had a big party planned that night and I told her, you know, "It's fine. I don't need to do this." And she was insistent that I stay and have the biopsy and she was willing to do whatever it took to make sure that I had the biopsy done that day. And so I came back a couple hours later after I picked up my kids from school and got them home and had someone stay with them and had the biopsy. It was super quick, painless, done, carried on with my evening. And seven days later, right after I dropped my kids off at school in the morning, I was sitting at home, having a cup of coffee and got a phone call. The doctor said, "I can't believe I have to tell you this over the phone, but you have breast cancer."

Melanie Cole, MS (Host): Oh, my God. I just got chills. How scary, Amanda? And you're so young and your kids are young. What happened next?

Amanda Kasahara: There was a little bit of crying. There was a little bit of panicking. I had to call my husband at work. My husband is a Los Angeles City firefighter. And so, because of the COVID situation, there were no visitors allowed at the fire station at that time. So it was definitely not something that I wanted to tell him over the phone, but it was also something that I didn't think could wait until he came home. So I called him and told him, and he couldn't come home because of the staffing situation at work. So I just sat there and called some friends, waited, composed myself. My kids, I had to pick them up from school that day and I didn't want to scare them, you know, but I certainly wasn't ready to tell them. And you know, for about 24 hours until I was able to get my husband there home with me, we kind of carried on as normal. And then, we had a conversation about whether or not we were going to tell the kids. I remember asking the doctor, you know, she said, you need a bunch more testing. You know, we have to do some other things to figure out, you know, how expensive this is. And my question to her was, "Well, does that mean that there's a chance I don't have breast cancer?" And she said "No, we're a hundred percent sure you have breast cancer. It's just a matter of how extensive it is."

And being in the medical field and then my husband, you know, being also a first responder, we knew that there were going to be a lot of conversations that were going to go on at home that were going to involve the diagnosis or treatment or words that, you know, could potentially-- we didn't want to hide it from the kids. We didn't want them to overhear something and get scared. So we decided to sit them down together and tell them exactly what was going on and that we didn't have all the information, that we would let them know as things were happening and we would be as honest with them as possible. And it was the best decision because it ended up being a very extensive process. It was very fast. The hospital did an amazing job of getting my scans done as fast as possible, getting my diagnosis situated as fast as possible, getting me in for surgery. And then I had chemo and then I had radiation. And my kids, you know, it's scary, the whole thing is very scary, but they always felt like they were included and communicated with.

Melanie Cole, MS (Host): Wow. That's just so much, Amanda, when you have young kids. And I hear you with not knowing what to say to your kids. So during chemo, radiation, surgery, you're juggling your health. Your kids are in remote schooling because it's COVID. I mean, how did you handle all of that? Who did you vent to? I would've been screaming at everybody.

Amanda Kasahara: You know, I just tried to stay as focused as I could on what I could control. You know, we made the decision that I was going to have chemo. We made the decision that I was going to have radiation. I had to give up a lot of things. Like the house is not going to be clean today. I'm not going to be making dinner for you guys today.

At one point in the middle of November of 2020, right before I started chemotherapy, there was a huge surge in COVID in the Delta variant. We had to take the kids out of their sports. One of the girls played club soccer, one of the girls ran cross country and my son plays ice hockey. So we have very busy schedules and we had to pull them out of all of their sports, which was really hard for them, because that was their outlet and that was their place of, you know, comfort where their friends were, where they were able to be normal, where they weren't at home with mom who was sick.

And so we had to learn how to balance that at home, trying to keep it light and trying to keep it structured, so that the whole house wasn't just about mom being sick, even though that was still there. And then my husband was gone 10 to 12 days a month at the fire station. So, you know, they were 10 and 11 years old with mom in the middle of chemo, you know, and dad's at the fire station. So how does that look for them? You know, we're by myself, my parents aren't here. So we have an amazing set of friends who stepped in and we're willing to not see other people because we were trying to quarantine and be responsible with COVID because we didn't want me to get sick, because that would've stopped my ability to have chemo. We would've had to wait until I finished with the COVID infection. So we had an amazing, basically, you know, community of friends who put their lives on hold to get me and my kids through this whole process and were incredibly grateful for them.

Melanie Cole, MS (Host): That's lovely to hear that people really can come together when that is so necessary. Gosh, this experience is just harrowing. So how about your experience with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, how did they help you navigate this diagnosis? And I'd like you to tell us what in particular stood out about the care that you received, the doctors, the staff, as you worked there. Tell us a little bit about what it's like to be a patient and what really stood out for you.

Amanda Kasahara: I can't say enough, honestly, as a patient and as a staff nurse. I mean, it's hard enough to have a cancer diagnosis and everything that comes along with that, and then be a healthcare provider and your imagination starts working over time. But then to have it in the middle of a pandemic, when there's no access to your outside support system within the walls of the hospital. That's changed now where we are allowing visitors to come in. But at that time, there were no visitors. And so every step of the process from the biopsy, to the diagnosis, to surgery, to being in the hospital was done with just me and the hospital as my support system.

I have an unusual, not unusual, but a less common form of breast cancer. I have invasive lobular breast cancer, and it is very difficult to diagnose. It doesn't what they call radiograph well, meaning it doesn't show up on mammogram. And that's why my mammogram was normal. The fact that Dr. Dante was able to identify that lesion on the ultrasound speaks to the amazing skill set of the clinicians that are practicing here.

You know, I had an amazing breast surgeon. I had a fantastic oncologist. I had an incredible plastic surgeon. But all of that doesn't happen without a diagnosis. And so to have a clinician as skilled as Dr. Dante is to pick up a difficult to diagnose tumor at an early stage was the gift that started the entire process off.

My oldest of four children who is 24 years old, and a mom herself now, wrote a letter to Dr. Dante. And the morning of my mastectomy, she was the radiologist who came over to give me the injection of the nuclear isotope that they used to locate lymph nodes. And I was able to give her that letter and she sat there and she cried with me before I went into surgery. And I felt like I had family with me, even though I didn't. You know, I went to pre-op, the chaplain came up, she prayed with me. She prayed with my husband over FaceTime. The anesthesiologists, they kept in contact with my husband throughout that day to make sure he knew what was going on, because he couldn't be here. The nurses who I'd never met up in Tower 5, I mean, we interact with the staff coming from surgery, out into the floors, but we don't know everybody. They could not have done more to make sure that I knew that I was their number one priority. And it's a really hard place to be, you know, when your whole life has just been rocked and you are staring at a huge unknown. You don't know what's coming. You don't know if you're going to survive. You don't know what it's going to look like for your children, for yourself, for your husband, to have all of these people who are busy and they have other patients. I mean, anything I needed, any question I had, if I needed an extra minute of their time, I never felt like they were rushing to get out of the room or they had something to do. They were there for me as much as I needed them, however much I needed them. And then when I left the hospital, they all lined up in the hallway and were there clapping me out and waving me out as I was given back to my family,

Melanie Cole, MS (Host): Oh, Amanda. That's like something you see right on TV.

Amanda Kasahara: It hit it.

Melanie Cole, MS (Host): Just incredible. How do you feel now?

Amanda Kasahara: I'm back at work and I'm learning to navigate this post cancer world. You know, I've been basically told that I'm no evidence of disease, which is the words that you want to hear. But I'm learning what that looks like and what it's like to live like that and I feel good. I just hope that in this whole process of being able to be the testimonial speaker for the hospital this year for Sheila Veloz, that I'm able to reach out to other young women to get in and get their testing done and realize that at the end of this, what you benefit at the end by being able to be there and be with your family and move on is worth more than the fear of getting in and getting diagnosed.

Melanie Cole, MS (Host): I'm so glad that you are here to share your story. So I just have a few more questions. First of all, and I know this might sound like a weird question, but did anything positive come from this? What was the most positive part of this whole experience?

Amanda Kasahara: I think the most positive thing that's come from the entire experience is that we have learned to let a lot go. I mean, there's an aspect of mortality that you wrap your head around when you get a diagnosis like this, where you realize that, "I'm not so concerned about us having to be at every single practice at every single second. I'm not so worried about getting all the housework done at that exact moment." Being with the kids, being able to be with them, being able to be a family, that is what matters more than anything. And so all of that additional fluff that sometimes can become very forward in your life and you start to feel like it has so much meaning, it really is insignificant. And so I think as a family unit, we've been able to let go of a lot of that and refocus on what's important to us.

Melanie Cole, MS (Host): And now, as we finish, what would you like to tell people about the importance of those mammograms who might be hesitant, especially at those early ages, when you get, you know, your first couple and your first baseline. And I'm a 58-year-old woman, so I've been getting them a long time, but what would you like to tell women who are not quite sure whether this is right for them?

Amanda Kasahara: What I can say to them is that I got the chance to have chemo and have radiation and have my breast cancer diagnosed at an early stage because I got in and because I got tested. The cancer was there, so whether it was detected early or it wasn't detected early was entirely dependent on me. Getting in there and getting it done, that doesn't cause the cancer. It's there and they're going to find it if it's there and. Every single day that I sat there in chemo and every day I sat there in radiation, I was thankful for the opportunity to be there and to fight for my kids and to fight for my husband and to fight for myself because, if it had been diagnosed later or if it had been diagnosed too late, I wouldn't have had that opportunity. So get in and give yourself the opportunity to fight.

Melanie Cole, MS (Host): Beautifully said, Amanda. Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story and how scary that must have been, but you sound like just such a strong lady and we thank you again for coming on and sharing that difficult time with us.

For more information or to make your annual mammogram appointment at the Sheila R. VeLos Breast Center. Please visit henrymayo.com and search medical services, breast center.

That concludes this episode of It's Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. You can also visit our free health information library at library.henrymayo.com for so much information on mammograms and breast cancer. It's really a great place to get quality information that you can trust. I'm Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.