Four years ago this month, Theresa Specht, a preschool teacher and mother of two, was lying in bed watching television when a public service announcement about Breast Cancer Awareness Month came on. At 29, she had never really thought to thoroughly check herself out.
That’s the night she felt the lump in her left breast.
“My husband told me, ‘You didn’t have cancer an hour ago; you don’t have it now” and to relax and get some sleep,” Theresa recalls. Her gut told her otherwise.
Just before her 30th birthday, Theresa was diagnosed with stage III lymph node-positive breast cancer.
She had no risk factors or family history and tested negative for the BRCA gene. Her cancer, in her breast and lymph nodes, appeared to be estrogen-driven and was positive for the HER2 protein. “It’s a nasty cancer, but for that reason, a lot of research has gone into developing drugs to target the protein,” Theresa says. (It’s unclear whether her Cowden syndrome, a rare genetic variant, played a role.)
After six cycles of chemotherapy, a year of targeted biological therapies, a bilateral mastectomy and prophylactic hysterectomy, six weeks of daily radiation, reconstructive surgery and ongoing use of Tamoxifen, Theresa is still here, showing cancer who’s boss. She shares with Bare Necessities 10 truths about what happens when you’ve emerged from the fight of your life and it’s time to pick up where you left off:
