Breast Cancer Awareness: A Story of Healing

A cou­ple of weeks ago, Kris Thomas’s grand­daugh­ter made a state­ment that echoed how she felt: ​“Grand­ma looks like Grand­ma again.” 

Those sim­ple words car­ried immense pow­er after a chal­leng­ing year for Kris — a year that includ­ed a breast can­cer diag­no­sis, treat­ment, and, ulti­mate­ly, a mas­tec­to­my with recon­struc­tion. For Kris, this moment was a mile­stone, a sign that the vis­i­ble traces of can­cer were final­ly fading.

Kris’s jour­ney began last sum­mer while she was on vaca­tion with her hus­band, Jim, in Gulf Shores, Alaba­ma. She noticed some dim­pling in her left breast she hadn’t seen before. Con­cerned, she shared her wor­ries with Jim, and togeth­er, they agreed it was some­thing they couldn’t ignore.

After their two-week vaca­tion, they head­ed home on July 5. While still on the road, Kris called her doc­tor, QMG Gyne­col­o­gist Dr. Tanya Mero, who urged her to come in as soon as pos­si­ble. Kris sched­uled an appoint­ment for July 10 — her birth­day. That day, she under­went a mam­mo­gram fol­lowed by a biopsy.

“Dr. Mero told me she didn’t have the results yet, but it didn’t look good,” Kris recalled.

Though they were still wait­ing for an offi­cial diag­no­sis, Kris and Jim gath­ered their fam­i­ly to share the dif­fi­cult news.

“When we got home, we sat the kids down and told them that we didn’t know all the details yet, but things weren’t look­ing good,” Kris said. ​“Jim and I were in shock. We spent the rest of the day at home, just try­ing to process it all.”

When the biop­sy results came in, Kris’s fears were con­firmed — she had breast can­cer. In the days that fol­lowed, her care team quick­ly start­ed plan­ning her treat­ment, guid­ing her through the uncer­tain­ty and eas­ing some of her anxiety.

Choos­ing a sur­geon was an easy deci­sion for Kris. She want­ed QMG Breast Sur­geon Dr. Chris­t­ian Zwick, a long-time fam­i­ly friend.

“My hus­band has known Dr. Zwick since child­hood, and we trust­ed him com­plete­ly to guide us through this jour­ney. He was so infor­ma­tive and reas­sur­ing. He told us, ​‘We’ll take care of you.’ From that moment on, things moved fast.”

By August 2, Kris had under­gone surgery to have a port placed for chemother­a­py and began treat­ment under the care of QMG Oncol­o­gist Dr. Wajee­ha Rizvi.

“The first two months of chemo were tough because I had treat­ments every oth­er week,” Kris said. ​“After that, I did week­ly treat­ments for 12 weeks.”

With fre­quent vis­its for treat­ment, Kris quick­ly formed close bonds with the team at the QMG Can­cer Institute.

“You see them so often that they real­ly get to know you,” Kris shared. ​“When you walk in, they’ve already checked you in. My hus­band always com­ments on how amaz­ing it is that they remem­ber my name. Even now, when I go for fol­low-ups every few weeks, they greet me the same way — they already have every­thing ready and say, ​‘You’re good to go.’ Every­one there has been incredible.”

In Decem­ber, Kris com­plet­ed her final round of chemother­a­py and pre­pared for surgery. She chose to have a dou­ble mas­tec­to­my, a deci­sion that brought peace of mind to both her and Jim.

Her mas­tec­to­my and recon­struc­tion were per­formed by Dr. Zwick and QMG Plas­tic Sur­geon Dr. Fynn-Thomp­son. Kris felt ful­ly sup­port­ed through­out the process.

Both doc­tors used inno­v­a­tive tech­niques that removed vis­i­ble signs of can­cer with min­i­mal scar­ring. At a fol­low-up appoint­ment, Kris and Jim heard the words they had been hop­ing for — cancer-free.

“I remem­ber look­ing at Jim, and we were in dis­be­lief. It was hard to believe after every­thing we had gone through,” Kris said.

Reflect­ing on her jour­ney, she feels a renewed sense of the impor­tance of breast can­cer screen­ing. Kris’s advice to oth­ers is sim­ple but crit­i­cal: ​“Sched­ule your mam­mo­gram. Don’t put it off. Self-exams are just as impor­tant, so you can notice any changes.”

“I didn’t feel phys­i­cal­ly sick through­out treat­ment, which I’m thank­ful for. But the emo­tion­al toll was hard­er. Shav­ing my head was one of the most dif­fi­cult moments. My hus­band did it for me while we were on vaca­tion, just the two of us. One morn­ing, I woke up with hair all over my pil­low and knew it was time.”

Despite the chal­lenges, Kris feels an immense sense of grat­i­tude. With the help and sup­port of her fam­i­ly, friends, and care team at QMG, Kris is back to look­ing- and feel­ing- like her­self once more.