{"id":26502,"date":"2020-11-04T19:41:15","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T19:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cmshub.wpengine.com\/?p=326405"},"modified":"2024-11-03T15:16:15","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T15:16:15","slug":"woman-with-strong-family-history-of-cancer-finally-gets-diagnosis-after-months-of-covid-19-delays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/woman-with-strong-family-history-of-cancer-finally-gets-diagnosis-after-months-of-covid-19-delays\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman with Strong Family History of Cancer Finally Gets Diagnosis After Months of COVID-19 Delays"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Brigid Kaelin<\/a> is a singer-songwriter who plays more than 10 instruments and tours Europe annually. She has a supportive husband and two sons, in preschool and second grade. She also has a long family history of cancer. Both of her parents died of the disease, and she spent time acting as a caretaker for both of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Every woman on her mom\u2019s side of the family has gotten breast or ovarian cancer<\/a> at some point, and every man on her dad\u2019s side has been diagnosed with prostate or colon cancer. So Brigid knew she needed to take her cancer screening seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo: Facebook\/Brigid Kaelin<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Shortly after her dad died of cancer last summer, Brigid began to take better care of herself and started to realize that something didn\u2019t feel right about her body. She was losing her appetite and felt a tingling pain up and down her shoulder that wouldn\u2019t go away. They were small symptoms that most people attributed to her grief, but she didn\u2019t want to just pass them off as nothing, because her dad did that with his sinus cancer, which the doctors believed was allergies.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo: Facebook\/Brigid Kaelin<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When both a mammogram and an ultrasound of her breasts came back clear, Brigid still felt like something was amiss and asked for an MRI<\/a> just to be sure. After all, a mammogram had missed her mom\u2019s cancer the first time too.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the COVID-19 pandemic caused her appointment to be pushed back three times, delaying her diagnosis for several months. Finally, in September, she was able to get the scan done and learned that she had breast cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo: Facebook\/Brigid Kaelin<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt was part relief in that I got an answer that was definitive,\u201d says Brigid. \u201cUncertainty with the pandemic is what\u2019s driving us crazy. That\u2019s what it is without the cancer diagnosis, it\u2019s just pure uncertainty.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Brigid\u2019s doctors recommended a simple lumpectomy to get rid of the 8-millimeter tumor<\/a> in her right breast. But Brigid wasn\u2019t messing around. \u201cNobody can tell you you\u2019re going to be fine,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd anyone who does? What do you know?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Having finished having children and breastfeeding them, the 42-year-old Louisville musician knew she didn\u2019t really need her breasts anymore and decided to go for a full double mastectomy<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo: Facebook\/Brigid Kaelin<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis is clearly heredity,\u201d she recalls thinking. \u201cGet them both removed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So she went through with the double mastectomy. Doctors originally offered her a surgery date in mid-November, but she pushed back, wanting to get things moving as quickly as possible. Her surgery was then rescheduled for October 8th.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m young,\u201d she says, recalling that first week after her diagnosis. \u201cI\u2019ve got these kids. I\u2019m going to live. You\u2019re not going to push my surgery off.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo: GoFundMe\/Peace of mind for Brigid Kaelin<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Brigid\u2019s surgery turned up four small stage 1a tumors<\/a> in her right breast, some of which would likely have been missed if she\u2019d had a lumpectomy. Now she\u2019s waiting for testing to determine whether she\u2019ll need chemotherapy and radiation therapy. She plans to seek a second opinion either way just to cover her bases.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brigid had originally planned on keeping her breast cancer a secret. She remembered the pain she went through after her mother was diagnosed with the disease, and she didn\u2019t want to cause that type of pain to her friends and family.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo: Facebook\/Brigid Kaelin<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, Brigid soon realized that sharing her experience was one of the only things she could do to help raise awareness and remind others to do their self-exams and get regular mammograms. She hopes that her story can inspire others to advocate for themselves when they believe something is going wrong in their body.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brigid is currently working on a memoir<\/a> about her time caring for her parents during their cancer battles. She never expected the book to have a plot twist where she was diagnosed with cancer herself. Sometimes life just doesn\u2019t turn out the way you expect it to.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to support Brigid on her cancer journey, there\u2019s a GoFundMe page set up here<\/a> to support her.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Elizabeth<\/p>\n

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Elizabeth Nelson is a wordsmith, an alumna of Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, a four-leaf-clover finder, and a grammar connoisseur. She has lived in west Michigan since age four but loves to travel to new (and old) places. In her free time, she. . . wait, what\u2019s free time?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Provide Mammograms<\/h5>\n

Support those fighting Breast Cancer at The Breast Cancer Site<\/span> for free! \u2192<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n