Fertility After Breast Cancer
- Becca Stanton, a 28-year-old police officer in North Carolina, was diagnosed with breast cancer after finding a lump during a self breast exam. She’s using her experience to raise awareness about the importance of self-exams.
- Experts recommend performing a monthly breast self-exam to look for anything unusual because it can help with early detection and treatment.
- Talk to your doctor if you notice one or more of the following symptoms: a new lump in the breast, unusual sagging, new swelling in the breast, changes to the nipple (such as puckering), flaking or redness in the breast or nipple, discharge (including blood) coming from the nipple and pain in the breast.
- Stanton also opened up about how she’s hoping to undergo treatment to preserve her fertility. Various cancer treatments, including chemotherapy and radiation, can affect both men’s and women’s fertility.
- Before starting treatment, patients hoping to have a family in the future should ask their doctors about options — such as egg, sperm, and embryo freezing.
Stanton, of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, commemorated the completion of her treatments by ringing the chemo bell with support from her colleagues, who she describes as like “family,” just five months after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
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She likened ringing the bell to her strength, telling the news outlet, “I can do hard things, and anyone can do hard things, so whatever’s to come, I’ll be okay.’”
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As for how she found her lump, she told WBTV, “I knew that it hadn’t been there before. I don’t do [self-exams] every month, but probably every other month and I knew that that was new.”
She continued, referring to how she felt at the time of her diagnosis, “I think I decided in that moment that the journey was probably going to be hard, but it was not going to be permanent.
“It’s not fair and I could cry and stomp my feet and have a pity party for myself or I could just take it on the chin and not lay down and take it. I decided that I was not going to stop living my life because of it.”
Now, she’s hoping her story can encourage other women to check their breasts and seek medical advice when something seems off.
Stanton said, “You’d rather know than not know, and if you wait, you might wish you never did.”
A GoFundMe, set up for Stanton earlier this year to help with medical bills and funding her fertility preservation journey, shared the following words from the resilient officer: “I’m 28 years old. I’m active, I’m strong, I live a healthy lifestyle. And yet, I’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer.
“At the time of my diagnosis—and still today—I am, arguably, the fittest I’ve ever been. Beyond working out, I have prioritized my mental health. I’ve done all the things to try and prevent something like this from happening. So while cancer showed up anyway, I know I’ve built a strong foundation to face this—physically, mentally, and spiritually.”
She continued, “Cancer doesn’t care about your age, your habits, your mindset. It doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t play fair. I found a lump during a self-exam right before I traveled to D.C. for the Inauguration.
“I trusted my gut and went to the doctor when I got home—and that decision saved my life. So if you take anything from this, let it be this: Do your self-checks. Know your body. Speak up if something feels off. If you don’t know how? Google it. Ask someone. Early detection saves lives!”
Expert Resources On Breast Cancer
- Advances in Metastatic Breast Cancer Treatments Over the Last Year Offer New Hope for Those Fighting
- Bi-Annual Mammograms At Age 40 Now Recommended For Most Women, What The New Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines Mean For You
- Digital Guide: Dr. Yara Abdou Breaks Down Next-Generation Sequencing & Breast Cancer Treatment
- Learn Your Risk and Listen to the Guidelines: An Important Message About Breast Cancer Awareness
- Breast Reconstruction: Regaining Your Sense of Self
- Getting to Know Your Breasts with Self-Exams
Stanton, whose GoFundMe page has since raised nearly $6,000, explains that her next treatment will consist of surgery, radiation and continued immunotherapy. But she’s hoping to raise money to help pay for fertility treatments, too.
Cancer’s Impact on Fertility
“One of the biggest hurdles I’m facing is preserving my fertility. As a young woman, I’ve always dreamed of having a family someday. But chemotherapy and treatment can severely impact fertility—and unfortunately, fertility preservation is not covered by insurance,” Stanton explained further.
“That means egg retrieval, storage, and related procedures are all out-of-pocket—and they’re expensive. This GoFundMe isn’t just about helping me survive this year. It’s about helping me preserve the future I’ve always envisioned.”
She said the funds donated will help her pay for fertility preservation costs, other medical bills and treatment, taking time off work to see doctors and her recovery journey.
Dr. Jaime Knopman talks about fertility preservation after a cancer diagnosis.
Fertility Preservation Options
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: This prevents the eggs from maturing so that they cannot be damaged during treatment
- Ovarian transposition: For women getting radiation to the pelvis, this moves 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 should be 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
Symptoms like this should prompt a visit to your doctor. They may not be cancer, but a medical professional should run tests to determine if further examinations or treatment is required. Early detection saves lives.
Getting A Diagnosis
A lump or change detected during a self-exam 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, 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?
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.
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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