Fertility After Breast Cancer
- As content creator Bridget Bahl, 40, embarks on her sixth IVf retrieval with faith, the fashionista and wife of plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Chiodo in New York City, is now battling breast cancer that spread to her lymph nodes. Her cancer was discovered after she found a lump in her breast and informed her doctor. Now she’s urging others to do self breast exams and get screened.
- It’s always a good idea to be familiar with your own breasts, so you can learn what’s normal for you, and how to spot any changes worth mentioning to your doctor. For this reason, SurvivorNet’s experts recommend that you do regular breast self-exams.
- Various cancer treatments, including chemotherapy and radiation, can affect both men’s and women’s fertility. IVF is among several options cancer patients can turn to if they have hopes of parenthood.
- Before undergoing cancer treatment, patients must speak to their doctors about fertility preservation if they wish to have a family in the future.
- Egg, sperm, and embryo freezing are common approaches to fertility preservation, but other options exist, like adoption.
RELATED: Can I Have A Baby After Breast Cancer?
Read MoreShe revealed to her 1.4 million Instagram followers in an reel shared on Sunday, “I have been avoiding making this video. t has been a really hard time. I found out that I have breast cancer.View this post on Instagram
“A few weeks ago, I had shared with you guys that I would be starting another IVF retrieval. It would be my sixth retrieval. We just really want to have a baby.
Bahl explained how she was “maybe two or three days in to the shots” when she had routine blood work with her doctor. That was when she pointed out a lump she felt in her breast and he replied by saying, “We’re stopping right now, you have to… go in for imaging.”
However, Bahl recalled, “I was completely convinced that it was fine, that it was just a cyst from the hormones. I really, truly did not feel worried about it. I felt great.”
Although she “felt great” at the time, the teary-eyed influencer ultimately underwent a mammogram and a sonogram, which revealed the abnormal mass.
RELATED: What to Expect from a Breast Biopsy
She recounted a doctor showing her “the mass” on the screen and telling her, “Bridget, I’ve been doing this a long time and I do not like what I see.”
Bahl then had a biopsy soon after, which revealed she did have breast cancer and it spread to a lymph node.
View this post on Instagram
After admitting how she’s not looking forward to the “scary road ahead,” she insists her faith in God will help her through adversity.
“I believe through the grace of God, I can do it. The last few weeks have been nothing short of a nightmare and just so many appointments, trying to process and make plans,” she explained, before urging her fans to do self exams and follow breast cancer screening guidelines.
She’s now set to undergo chemotherapy, surgery and “possibly radiation,” but Bahl reassured her fans that the type of cancer she was diagnosed with “is very responsive to a targeted treatment.”
Bahl captioned the emotional post, “I have breast cancer. it’s been a tough few weeks. I am obviously incredibly scared of what is to come but I know that God makes beauty from ashes. I know that he is here with me. That he hasn’t left my side and that I am going to be ok.
“I am not looking forward to the next few months but i know it will be a chapter in my life and not the whole book. while it’s hard to see it right now, I believe that God will transform this struggle into something beautiful. And I know that by sharing this I will help someone else catch it sooner and that is reason enough for me. Please do your self exams. I love you.”
Expert Breast Cancer Resources
- An Overview of Breast Cancer Treatment
- Advances in Metastatic Breast Cancer Treatments Over the Last Year Offer New Hope for Those Fighting
- Digital Guide: Dr. Yara Abdou Breaks Down Next-Generation Sequencing & Breast Cancer Treatment
- Metastatic Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Treatments To Consider
- Monitoring After Treatment for Breast Cancer
- The Unique Features of Breast Cancer: Deciding the Right Course of Treatment
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As for her fertility treatment, Bahl concluded, “Mike and I are currently doing what will be my final IVF retreival. We didn’t star at the most ideal time.
“There’s not enough time to wait … to do another round. So I’m just asking for prayers. I would just love to get another embryo. It would mean so much to me if you guys could pray.”
“I could also not encourage you to please, please do your self exams,” she added.
Dr. Jaime Knopman talks about fertility preservation after a cancer diagnosis.
Your Options For Preserving Your Fertility Before Cancer Treatment
Most women who preserve their fertility before cancer treatment do so by freezing their eggs or embryos. After you finish your cancer treatment, a doctor who specializes in reproductive medicine can implant one or more embryos in your uterus or the uterus of a surrogate with the hope that it will result in pregnancy.
If you freeze eggs only before treatment, a fertility specialist can use sperm and your eggs to create embryos in vitro and transfer them to your uterus.
When freezing eggs or embryos is not an option, doctors may try these less common approaches:
- Ovarian tissue freezing, an experimental approach for girls who haven’t yet reached puberty and don’t have mature eggs or for women who must begin treatment right away and don’t have time to harvest eggs.
- Ovarian suppression to prevent the eggs from maturing so that they cannot be damaged during treatment.
- Ovarian transposition, for women getting radiation to the pelvis, to move the ovaries out of the line of treatment.
In addition to preserving eggs or embryos, positive research has shown that women with early-stage hormone-receptor (HR) positive breast cancer were able to safely pause endocrine therapy to try to get pregnant and they did not have worse short-term recurrence rates than people who did not stop ET.
In the study from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, most of those people who paused ET were able to conceive and deliver healthy babies.
Of course, your doctor will be able to help you understand your unique circumstances and which path such as pausing endocrine therapy is right for you.
Dr. Terri Woodard discusses your options for preserving fertility after a cancer diagnosis.
Understanding Breast Cancer Symptoms
It’s always a good idea to be familiar with your own breasts, so you can learn what’s normal for you, and how to spot any changes worth mentioning to your doctor. For this reason, SurvivorNet’s experts recommend that you do regular breast self-exams.
Dr. Comen shares how self-exams can help you learn what’s normal and what’s not for your breasts.
You don’t need to have an MD after your name to know whether a lump is new, or your breast is changing in appearance. Your goal in performing self-exams is to see whether anything about your breasts is different than usual.
Look for changes like:
- A new breast lump
- New swelling in one breast
- Changes in the nipple (such as puckering)
- Redness or flaking in the breast or nipple
- Discharge (including blood) from the nipple
- Pain in the breast
- Bring symptoms like these to your doctor’s attention.
Getting a Diagnosis
Your mammogram or self-exam results may lead your doctor to recommend further testing with a diagnostic mammogram, ultrasound, or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). If these tests suggest changes that might be cancer, you’ll need a biopsy–a test in which your doctor removes a small sample of tissue and has it checked for cancer in a lab. Only a biopsy can confirm or rule out whether you have breast cancer.
Although it can be frightening to go through breast cancer testing, SurvivorNet’s doctors advise that you try not to get ahead of yourself. It’s very possible for a biopsy to find that a lump is benign (not cancer).
If you do receive a breast cancer diagnosis, you’ll get a lot more information along with it, such as the type and stage of the disease. The stage means how far in your body the cancer has spread.
Though most breast cancers are not linked to inherited genetic mutations, knowing whether you have a mutation could affect the type of treatment you get. Therefore, it’s recommended that all women who are diagnosed with breast cancer be given genetic testing.
Do you need genetic testing? The answer, according to Dr. Ophira Ginsburg, Director of the High-Risk Cancer Program at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, depends on your family history of cancer.
Based on your test results, preferences, and personal circumstances (such as your age), you and your doctor will make decisions about how to proceed with treatment.
There are different types of breast cancer, and determining what type you have will help your doctor choose the best treatment option for you.
The links below will take you to simple guides SurvivorNet created to explain treatment options for different types of breast cancer.
- Living With ‘HER2-Low’ Breast Cancer
- Living With HER2-Positive Breast Cancer
- Living With Metastatic Breast Cancer
- Living With HER2-Positive Metastatic Breast Cancer
- Living With HR-Positive Metastatic Breast Cancer
Coping With a Diagnosis
Coping with a diagnosis involves a range of emotions from anger to sadness and everything in between. Sarah Stapleton, a licensed clinical social worker, encourages cancer warriors and their families to be “patient with your emotions.”
It’s also important that you understand how you communicate with your providers, but also with your loved ones,” Stapleton said. “We can’t always assume that people know what we need at a given time, and there are going to be times when you don’t want to speak about your diagnosis and you don’t want to speak about cancer.
Psychiatrist Dr. Lori Plutchik previously explained to SurvivorNet some tips for cancer warriors and their caregivers for managing emotions after a diagnosis. She emphasized getting extra support from loved ones.
“Some people don’t need to go outside of their family and friend circle. They feel like they have enough support there,” Dr. Plutchik said. “But for people who feel like they need a little bit more, it is important to reach out to a mental health professional.”
“Patients who have just been diagnosed with cancer sometimes wonder how they are going to handle the diagnosis of the cancer in social situations,” Dr. Plutchik added. “How much information they should share and with whom they should share the information, everybody is different.”
Ultimately it comes down to what feels right. Loved ones supporting a cancer warrior are encouraged to respect the wishes of the cancer patient when it comes to disclosing their diagnosis.
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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