Local realtor survives breast cancer

By LAURA BEHENNA

Bigfork Eagle

Katie Brown had just about everything going her way in early 2004.

She and her husband, Tom, were successful owner-brokers at Eagle Bend Trails West Realty, they had two healthy children and they vacationed in California and Hawaii.

She almost skipped her annual mammogram that year. She had no family history of breast cancer, no breast lump she could feel and no reason to think it would happen to her.

"I work out, I eat healthy, I never get sick," Brown said. "I never really worried about it."

She kept her mammogram appointment that February, and in retrospect she's relieved she didn't wait another year.

"The doctor called and said, 'There's something there'" on her mammogram, she said. He called her in for another set of pictures of the questionable breast. The second mammogram looked troubling, too. Next came an ultrasound test so that the doctor could get another view of the cloudy spot on her breast.

"I was still in a stage of 'Not me, I'm a good person,' all those crazy things you think," she said. But with each test result, her doctor sounded more worried.

"I have a very strong faith, so I was saying lots of prayers and had a lot of people praying for me," she said. Still, she admitted, "I was getting pretty scared."

Brown's doctor sent her to Dr. Jim Bonnet, a surgeon who is now retired and lives in Bigfork, whom Brown described as "the most incredible doctor ever." Bonnet had lost his sister to breast cancer. He was understanding, compassionate and informative, Brown said. He did a "needle biopsy" in which he inserted a thin needle into Brown's breast to check for cancer cells.

Later, Brown was waiting for her daughter in the IGA parking lot when a message from Bonnet popped up on her cell phone: "Katie, you need to give me call; the results weren't what I was hoping to see." Instead of feeling terror, though, "I had a peacefulness go through me, like 'Everything's going to be OK,'" she said.

First thing the next morning, Brown met with Bonnet in his office, where he gave her a detailed discussion of how cancer develops and what each treatment option would involve. Impatient, Brown wanted him to skip the details and simply tell her what to do, but he insisted she needed to understand the big picture first. She realized the wisdom of his approach later.

"As I progressed, it all fit together," she said. "Had he done it my way, I probably wouldn't have understood a lot of things that happened later."

Bonnet described the two main treatment options. Brown could have a mastectomy, which meant completely removing the affected breast. Then she could have the breast surgically reconstructed if she chose. Or she could have a lumpectomy, in which Bonnet would remove only the small part of her breast that contained the malignant spot. If she chose the lumpectomy she would also need radiation treatments to kill any remaining cancer cells in the breast.

"My initial response was, 'I don't really care, just take it off; I'm okay with that," Brown said. "I want it out of my system."

But Bonnet explained that the rate of breast cancer recurrence with either type of surgery was very similar.

"He said, 'Don't make a decision right now. You and Tom need to talk this over,'" Brown said.

Bonnet also advised her to read "Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book" and look at two Web sites: the chapter on breast cancer on the American Cancer Society's site, www.cancer.org, and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation site, www.komen.org.

He cautioned Brown to avoid overloading herself with too much information from other sources. He also warned, "'Be careful of other people's advice, because every single person's cancer is different.'"

Although Bonnet told her the type of cancer she had didn't spread quickly, had been found very early and would likely be cured with treatment, Brown still experienced painful moments of contemplating her mortality.

"It made me dig very deeply into my faith and my relationship with God," she said. "That was the best thing I could have done. It let me let go of my worry."

A friend put her in touch with Dawn Blades, who had also had breast cancer.

"She was very informative and very helpful and kind of got me grounded," Brown said. Blades recently died of her cancer, she added.

"My cancer was not so bad as many; it was not so fast-moving," she said. "But I think you're still faced with that fear of cancer and what could happen."

Brown's family wanted her to go to Stanford University for her treatment, but when she researched the services available in Kalispell, she decided to stay in the Flathead.

"It's incredible the care you get, and the technology," she said. "I felt I was in great hands."

When she went in for the lumpectomy, the staff was "comforting, calming, holding my hand and explaining things," she said. "It was a comfortable thing for something that was so scary."

Get-well cards poured in and friends brought so much food that "we didn't have to cook for weeks," she said. "People we didn't even know sent cards. People were so generous. I was on prayer chains all over the U.S."

After her surgery, Brown still had to undergo radiation treatment five days a week for seven weeks. The radiation made her so tired that she felt ready for bed by 7 p.m. Still, she felt sad when the treatments ended and she had to say goodbye to the medical people who had been kind to her. She still gets a blood test every six months to check for evidence the cancer may recur.

Brown said having cancer changed her outlook on life.

"My faith is much, much stronger and it changes your perspective," she said. "Being faced with your mortality helps you appreciate things. I don't get caught up in the small stuff as much. I started saying 'no' to things that took a lot of my time and saying 'yes' to things like playing tennis with my friends."

She also called her friends and urged them to get their mammograms.

Brown offered advice to other women facing breast cancer: Interview all your doctors. Ask them to help you navigate the medical system as you approach your treatments. When you're tired or not feeling good, just focus on "here's what I need to do today."

"I just learned to let go. Ultimately, it's out of my hands. For those who have their faith, I think you'll learn to rely on it. [Cancer is] an experience you would never choose to go through, but when you come out the other end, it's like 'I'm stronger than I thought I was.'"