Source: The Post and Courier – VISIT WEBSITE HERE
When Anne Sass found out she had a 2-inch-long lobular tumor in her breast earlier this fall, obviously, her first priority was getting rid of the cancer.
“I just went to my regular annual visit and they found a lump. I don’t have it in my family. I’m pretty healthy,” said Sass, 52, the grants director at Roper St. Francis. “(My doctor) said it might be a cyst, but then she mentioned Stan Wilson’s name. He specializes in oncology surgery and as soon as she said that, I was a little concerned.”
After surgery, her team of physicians recommended four rounds of chemotherapy to keep the cancer from coming back. That’s when they told her she’d likely lose her hair within two to three weeks of her first treatment.
“I didn’t want to be the girl in the room with the scarf,” she said. “And everyone tells you how uncomfortable the wigs are. When you talk to people, they said losing your hair is almost more traumatic than losing your breasts.”
It would have been traumatic for her family, too. Her brother died in 2011 choking on a piece of steak and Sass said she didn’t want her parents watching her deteriorate, worried that they may lose another child.
So Dr. David Ellison, an oncologist at Charleston Hematology Oncology Associates, told Sass she might consider a treatment called cold cap therapy. It’s not new, but very few patients use it because it’s expensive and painful.
“In the five years that I’ve been convinced that it’s a program that works, I probably haven’t had 10 people do it in my practice,” Ellison said.
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