q - Augusta Health

Fighting the
good fight
How Augusta Health is helping
defeat breast cancer
forty-four-year-old Sandy baZan Sat acroSS from
auguSta health Surgeon william thompSon, m.d., facS,
waiting for the reSponSe that could change her life.
“You think I have breast cancer?” she asked the doctor.
“I’m too young for that,” the mother of two teenage boys
thought.
That was October 2009, just a few short months after
she fi rst found a lump in her right breast. Though her breast
tissue had always been a little lumpy, she knew deep down
that this time was diff erent.
results from her biopsy confi rmed Dr. Thompson’s
suspicions, and he called her a few days after their meeting
to give her the news. He also said, “There’s someone I
want you to meet. She’s been in your shoes.” That someone
was breast health navigator Meg Shrader, r.n., B.S.n. A
breast cancer survivor herself, Shrader helps Augusta Health
patients work through an overwhelming number of cancer
resources and coordinates care among the physicians who
treat the disease.
“It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship on a
not-so-beautiful journey,” Bazan says.
Facing down cancer
Bazan would undergo additional testing, including an MrI, a
second biopsy and a diagnostic mammogram, to confi rm her
diagnosis and help physicians determine exactly what they
14 HealthMatters Spring 2011
were dealing with. Her cancer was stage I, grade 3—an
aggressive form of cancer that was caught early on.
As she began to come to grips with what she was facing,
she often turned to Shrader. “I can’t begin to describe the
impact that Meg has had,” she says. “It was amazing to have
someone to talk with, someone who’s been where I was
headed. She could relate to everything I was telling her.” The
two women discussed treatment options, as well as physical
and emotional issues surrounding breast cancer.
Because testing revealed that Bazan was at high risk for
a recurrence of breast cancer, chemotherapy became part of
her treatment plan. After a lumpectomy in november 2009,
she began the fi rst of four rounds of chemo in December of
that year. Her fi rst chemotherapy treatment was given in a
private room at the hospital’s infusion center to help her
adjust to the new treatment. Subsequent treatments were
given in an area alongside other patients. “I met so many
wonderful people there,” she says.
In preparation for the likelihood of losing her hair, she
had her hairdresser cut her long locks into a short style.
“I cried like a baby when she cut my hair off ,” she says. In
January 2010, her hair started to fall out. That’s when she
shaved her head and covered it with hats.
“It was hard,” admits Bazan. “Society looks at women
based on their hair, makeup and breasts. I felt that everything
that made me a woman was being attacked.”