Breast Cancer Awareness: A Central Oregon survivor knows the battle well – from both sides
(Update: Comments from breast cancer survivor Kristi Angevine)
'It really helped me have so much more empathy for my patients who are on the other side.'
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- “I was so scared, you know? I got the phone call when I was in the library and I was with my kid, and I was like, 'One moment, let me step into the bathroom' -- just hearing all these scary words," Kristi Angevine recalled. "I remember thinking, 'There’s a lot of anxiety about the unknowns here,' and yet being overcome with anxiety."
As we mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Kristi Angevine, a breast cancer survivor, is very familiar with the challenges of the battle, from both sides -- as a physician and as a patient.
Angevine is an OB/GYN in Bend, and was diagnosed with breast cancer in spring of 2019.
"I was in the group of people you pretty much want to be in, where you get a diagnosis, you get a treatment, and then you’re pretty much done," Angevine said.
After getting a mammogram and a biopsy, Angevine received a double mastectomy and reconstruction.
"What I had was called DCIS -- ductal carcinoma in situ. Sounds really scary, but it’s a malignancy around the ducts in our breasts, and mine was all over," Angevine said.
Had she not caught it early on, she believes the outcome would have been far different, five years down the road.
Initially, she detected something unusual during a self-exam.
“I felt something that felt gritty," Angevine said. 'Like it just felt like a different texture. I counsel people all the time, you know -- 'If you feel a new lump, if you feel a new bump.' But I never counsel people, ‘if you feel sandpaper.’ But it felt like sandpaper under my skin.”
A month of diagnosis, decision-making and treatment followed until the cancer was removed.
“It really helped me have so much more empathy for my patients who are on the other side," Angevine said. "I mean, being a patient is probably the best thing you can ever do when you’re a physician, because it helps you realize how scary it is."
