Lori Redunski

Hi there. My story begins when my older sister called me to tell me she found a lump on her left breast. As most caring sisters say, “It’s probably nothing”. I had a small lump on my right breast years ago and it was only a cyst, as would be hers I assumed. Unfortunately, I was wrong and she was diagnosed with stage I, triple neg. breast cancer. That was only the beginning of our Breast Cancer family history.

Two months later both my mother and I had our annual mammograms on the same day (different doctors) and guess what? Hers came out suspicious, and she was also diagnosed with breast cancer in her left breast, but her diagnosis was HER poss. As for me, mine came out negative so the report said. However, two months later, my husband (yes, husband), felt a large lump in my LEFT breast. I immediately made an appt. with my gynecologist who confirmed the lump and sent me for an ultra sound. It’s not a good sign when the doctor immediately comes out and tells you that its definitely not a cyst and tells me that I should call an oncologist surgeon to have a needle biopsy. Of course I went straight to Dr. Smith, my sister AND mom’s oncologist surgeon for the procedure.

I had no idea what to expect from this procedure, when I looked up and saw the doctor with this long needle coming at my breast. I’m not the squeamish type, and actually have a sarcastic sense of humor under duress, but this was just too freaky. Well, you can imagine my sarcasm when the needle accidentally pre-ejaculated after removing it from my breast and my breast tissue gunk shoots all over the wall behind my head! All I could do was laugh while the doctor was apologetic and the nurse tried to clean up the CSI scene!!! Still not thinking anything could be wrong with me, I went home and expected to hear the negative results in two or three days. Well, wrong again. It’s also not a very good sign when the doctor calls you the next morning to tell me that I, too, have breast cancer.

At the age of 46, I was diagnosed with Stage II, triple neg. breast cancer, just like my sister. As I sat there listening on the other end of the phone, the doctor was rambling something about making an appt. with an oncologist, going for blood work, CAT scans, bone scans, MRI’s, heart ultra sounds, blah..blah…blah… I felt a cartoon character from Charlie Brown when they are in the class room and the teacher is talking, but all you can hear is “whaaahn, whahn, Whahnn, whaaaahn, whahn,whan….”! The wheels were in motion and the roller coaster ride had begun.

I made an appt. with Dr. Hellerstedt, the rock star of oncology at Texas Oncology, Austin, where she gave me the drill and told me my course of action. We decided to go for Chemo. first to shrink the tumor since it seemed to be the best way of conserving the breast. You see, I was small chested and removing the lump would have ended up in a full mastectomy, besides, they said this procedure worked very well with my type of cancer. So, I went along on the Chemo ride.

My sister, who was a month ahead of me with her treatments, filled me in on what to expect and like her, I chose to cut off my long hair and shave it into what looked like a Demi Moore-GI Jane style. Once Chemo started, it was just a matter of days until I started loosing what little hair I had left, so my husband and kids (3 girls), decided to shave it into a Mohawk. A little reluctant, my one daughter said,” after this is all over, you can tell people that you where a 46 yr.old mother with a Mohawk”! It actually looked really cool, until one night when I was going out with some girlfriends and my kids stopped me from going out the door. “You can’t go out like that”. Little did I know, my Mohawk was molting. Since I couldn’t see the back of my head, I never noticed that my hair was falling out more. SOOOOO, my husband thought it would be funny to cover my head with shaving cream, get one of my lady Venus razors, and proceed to shave my head bald. Talk about Telly Savalas, all I was missing was the lollipop! So, make-up on, big earrings dangling, I went out to meet my friends! No hats, no scarves, no wraps, no looking back. Footnote, it was actually kinda nice not having to shave my legs, underarms, and bikini areas for those months!!!! I admit, It was a little hard to look in the mirror when I lost my eyebrows and eyelashes, because it was then I felt like a real cancer patient. But with the help of make-up, earrings, the support of friends, family, even strangers, the feeling never lasted long.

My 8 rounds of chemo ended, proceeded with a lumpectomy, port removal, then 36 rounds of radiation, I thought I was finished. WRONG once again! I had opted to take the BRCA I & II genetic test since three members of my family tested poss. for BC, AND I have three daughters of my own. I ended up testing poss. for a deleterious mutation (the BRCA 1 full gene rearrangement). This test indicated that I had a 90% chance of getting Ovarian cancer and about a 65% chance of re-occurring breast cancer.

Now, if I was a gambling woman, which I am not, and if I never had cancer before, I may have just blown off the test and took my chances. In reality, I knew this was not an option, and after talking with the wonderful compassionate Dr. Seeker (my OBGYN), we decided to go along and take out my ovaries and uterus. The upside of this, I also got a bladder lift and a little nip and tuck down there, OK, TMI!…..I also discussed with Dr. Hellerstedt the idea of having a bi-lateral mastectomy. In her mind, and mine, it made perfect sense. On a positive note, I would finally get those perky “C’s” I’ve always dreamed of, just under different circumstances! A month later, I had the double mastectomy with expanders put in. They werent what I expected, but I did have my life and something to fill out my shirts! I proceeded to feel like a pool float being blown up for the next few weeks until I had the go ahead to have permanant silicone “fun bags” put in.

So, in a course of 17 months, I had 5 operations! Not to mention that my father past away during that year and my husband, girls, and I re-located to the beautiful state of Colorado. During the course of the reconstruction, I had “racked”-up (no pun intended)!, a lot of frequent flyer miles commuting back and forth to my Austin doctors. This story ends up on a happy note, with my sister doing well, cancer free and waiting on a date for her double mastectomy, my mom doing well (she ended up with a partial mastectomy, 36 radiation treatments), and me… I’m waiting on my nipples. I wish they could be just ordered through mail order, but I have to wait until the first of the year when my new insurance deductible kicks in. I will then make another trip to Dr. Haydon in Austin for the procedure and then it’s the final act of the areola tatoooing.

Hopefully this will end my cancer ordeal and I will just have my follow-ups and mammograms to look forward to. Thank you for letting me tell my story and hope I didn’t ramble too much.
Lori Redunski
Current Colorado resident, former Texas resident.