Erin Gratsch | Ductal Carcinoma In Situ | Unilateral Mastectomy | Invasive Ductal Carcinoma

DESCRIPTION

On this episode of the @CancerInterviews podcast, Erin Gratsch tells host Bruce Morton how she twice survived breast cancer.  First, she was diagnosed with Ductal Carcinoma In Situ.  Then, six years later, the diagnosis was HER2+ ER-Negative.  Her regimen of TCHP chemotherapy was grueling, but about two weeks after its completion, Erin began to feel normal again.

A marathon runner, Erin Gratsch of Cincinnati, Ohio, felt like she was in the best shape of her life in 2016.  At age 45, she went in for a mammogram, and was diagnosed with Ductal Carcinoma In Situ, a cancer existing her milk ducts.  It was Stage Zero, but a very fast-growing type of breast cancer.

Erin opted to address this cancer with a unilateral mastectomy.  She chose to have her left breast removed, and do nipple sparing.  Her care team believed this procedure would cure her cancer.  And it did.  For about six years.  Then in July 2022, a second lump was found.

In 2022, Erin was going for a run and felt some chafing on her right breast, and on her left breast where she had had nipple sparing, she felt a lump.  Because of her mastectomy, she no longer qualified for mammograms, so her only screening was self breast exams.  Because Erin conducted self exams on a regular basis, she found the lump very early, it was Stage II Invasive Ductal Carcinoma HER2+ ER-.

Erin’s care team decided to “throw the book” at this diagnosis.  They did TCHP chemotherapy, six rounds over four months, followed by surgery to remove the tumor, followed by 25 rounds of radiation treatment. 

For Erin, the chemotherapy experience was like that of many patients.  There was the fatigue, the hair loss, the nausea, and what she detested the most, that being metal-like taste of food. 

Erin Gratsch is a marathon runner, and when dealing with chemotherapy and radiation, she put her mental toughness utilized as a distance runner to work when facing her cancer journey.  She chose to take each day, make it a singular challenge and try to meet that challenge.

Eventually, Erin not only began to feel normal, but she up to resuming competitive running.  She could not run nearly as fast as she did before her diagnosis, but said it still felt great to sign up for a race and cross the finish line.

Erin Gratsch says she feels extremely blessed and even after the cancer, she says she is the happiest she has ever been. 

Additional Resources:

Support Group:

Move Beyond Surviving: https://www.movebeyondsurviving.org

TRANSCRIPT

Bruce Morton: This is the @CancerInterviews podcast.  I’m your host, Bruce Morton.  Our guest on this episode has twice survived breast cancer.  Prior to her diagnosis, exercise was a big part of her life, and it still is.  She is Erin Gratsch of Cincinnati, Ohio.  Hers is a message that can help you in a big way.  So, now it’s time to hear it.  Here she is, Erin Gratsch, and Erin, welcome to Cancer Interviews.

Erin Gratsch: Happy to be here, thanks for having me.

BM: Before we get to your cancer journey, we want to learn more about you, your life outside of cancer.  So, if you would, tell us about where you are from, what you do for a living and what qualifies as fun.

EG: I am a Cincinnati born and raised native.  I have three boys, mom of three boys and then, two stepdaughters.  One graduated from West Point, another from Ohio State University, one from Miami University and one in eighth grade currently.  Very successful children, very proud of them.  I myself run the mobile mammography program at Mercy Health, helping women that may be in rural areas, making it convenient to get their yearly mammograms.  For fun, I am a runner, I like to exercise, I like hiking, I like trail running, just outside moving in nature is definitely something I really enjoy doing.

BM: With all that exercising, I am guessing that prior to your diagnosis, you were in excellent health, yes?

EG: I was in the best shape of my life, or so I thought.  I am really a walking poster child for why you should get a yearly mammogram.  It’s very important because we might feel like we are fit on the outside, but on the inside, we might not know what’s going on.  I had just run the Boston Marathon and then the Flying Pig Marathon (in Cincinnati) before I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016 at age 45. 

BM:  We’re confident you’ll be able to learn some tips and tools to help you through your personal cancer journey, but first we’d like you to please give us a ‘like’, leave a comment or review below and share this story with your friends.  Kindly click on the ‘subscribe’ button below and click on the bell icon so you will be notified the next time we post an interview.  And, if you or a loved one are facing a cancer diagnosis, please click on the link below to check out our free guide, “The Top Ten Things I Wish I Knew When I First Got Cancer.”

And Erin, as far as when you first got cancer, how did you find out you had cancer?

EG:  I was running and thought I was in great shape.  Went to the gym one day, came out had to go to the grocery next door and there was a mobile mammography unit sitting outside.  I knew I was needing my mammogram, I was overdue;  so, I knocked on the door and was told to come on in.  I had no family history, about 85 percent of women with breast cancer have no family history.  I was negative for the cancer gene, only seven percent have the cancer gene.  I was thinking everything would be fine and it just kind of snowballed from there.  The woman in there performed the mammogram and saved my life.  It was very aggressive type of cancer, and I was very thankful to her.

BM: Did you have treatment options, and if so, what type of treatment did you choose?

EG: The first time I was DCIS, Ductal Carcinoma In Situ, which means it was inside my milk ducts.  It was Stage Zero, but it was triple hormone negative, and it was Grade Three, which is a fast-growing type of breast cancer.  From the time I was diagnosed to the time that I had a unilateral mastectomy was about a month.  I chose to remove my breast on the left side and do nipple sparing at that time.  They believed at the time that would cure my cancer.  And it did for six years.  Or so I thought.

BM:  Breast cancer unfortunately can return.  How did yours return?

EG: Six years later I was out for a run.  I had some chafing on my right breast, and I felt it on my left breast where I had nipple sparing, and I felt a lump.  Once you have mastectomy, you don’t have mammograms.  You don’t qualify for them.  So, the only screens I was doing was self breast exams.  That’s why it is so important to do mammograms but also self breast exams.  Luckily, I found the lump very early and it was Stage Two this time.  Invasive Ductal Carcinoma HER-2 Positive ER-Negative.  It is not uncommon for a breast cancer to come back a different type when it does come back.  That was in July of 2022 when I found the second lump. 

BM: What treatment option did you choose?

EG: My option was to throw the book at it.  It was a second occurrence, so they didn’t want to mess around.  They wanted to make sure that this didn’t come back.  Luckily, I caught it early.  There was no lymph node activity that they saw, so they did TCHP, which is a type of chemotherapy, six rounds, four months, followed by surgery to remove the tumor, followed by 25 rounds of radiation. 

BM: The chemo.  What was the toughest part?

EG: All of it.  It is definitely some thing that you go through and you are scared to go through all of it, but not knowing the side effects, losing your hair, the fatigue, the nausea, the metal taste in your mouth.  I think the metal taste was really horrible for me.  It tasted like I was eating gravel when I was eating food.  The fatigue was awful.  I would sleep 12-13 hours a day, but the good news was I was able to come out of it and I was able to feel normal about a week to two weeks later.  That was the upbeat part of it.

BM: Chemo is tough from a physical standpoint, but between cancer and chemo, how did you address the mental and emotional piece?

EG: I was really dealing with it one step at a time.  It’s a marathon, not a sprint.  So, when you are a cancer patient and you are looking at your treatment, it can be so overwhelming, and it is thrown at you so quickly, having to make all these decisions so fast.  The chemo, it was really tough.  When I was tired, I allowed my body to rest and then I had some energy, I would push myself to get a workout in and to move my body, whether it was walking or some days, running.  I might teach a spin class, and when I felt like I could, I would make it a point to do that because it helps as a breast cancer survivor.

BM: Running and going through chemotherapy are two different things, but both of them require a pretty good amount of mental toughness.  Did the mental toughness you already had from your competitive running from your marathoning experience, did that help you in your approach to chemotherapy?

EG: I do believe so.  I am always strong-willed, I have always been a fighter.  Marathons are tough, chemo’s tough, so I just kinda put my head and kinda pushed through it.  I think trying to have a positive outlook on it because you can either curl up in a ball in a fetal position or you can move forward.  I just choose every day to move forward.  It just helped me mentally.  Cancer takes so much away from you as a human, physically, mentally, financially, so it made me feel good when I was able to go get out and run and sign up for a race and still cross that finish line.  It might not be the PR that I wanted, but I knew that I could still be in that atmosphere and still have that camaraderie with my friends and get out on the racecourse and just feel like I was normal.  It gave me a sense of normalcy and accomplishment.

BM: It is a great feeling when you are in a race, in the final 400 meters and you pass someone.  Did you ever feel like when you were in a race against cancer in which you felt you were doing a similar type of passing?

EG: Oh, absolutely.  I think the way I have been able to deal with it myself there is always somebody out there who might be going through something harder than myself, so I look at it like I still have the support of family and friends and financially I am okay.  Luckily, I am very blessed in my life, and I am the happiest I have ever been, even going through cancer.  I am very lucky.  It has strengthened relationships I have had and makes life so much more meaningful, and helping others helps me. 

BM: If you think about those closest to you, describe the level of support you got from family and friends.

EG: I work in women’s imaging, and I come in and my manager, she went to my appointments with me.  I have support from my work family, they just meant so much.  My fiancé, he’s just been a Godsend, I am just so thankful that I have him, my children, my friends, strangers that come up to me and have supported me, I have been very blessed just with the outcry of support from family and friends.

BM: You have had a positive outlook, but how was it to be positive at the time of your diagnosis?

EG: I try to have a positive outlook on life in general.  I love life, I love people.  Running makes me feel alive.  Going out and meeting people makes me feel alive.  That’s just who I am so I don’t see it the other way.  I have had my moments where I have broken down.  I don’t want to die, I don’t want to suffer, but I feel like I was chosen to go through what I have gone through so that I can help people and be more relatable.  Finding the support groups and helping other women connect and being able to help each other and that’s just what I love doing is helping other women and educating them and advocating for them.  And it helps me.

BM: Now let’s talk about a pleasant aspect of your cancer journey and that’s when you reached the point in which you felt you recovered.  Did you sense you were entering a new phase of your life?

EG: Oh, definitely.  It has been sort of a blur, now that I look back at it.  My radiation oncologist said she zapped the crap out of me and doesn’t want to see me again.  I am looking forward to getting back to a sense of normalcy in my life, setting some goals and taking some vacations, exploring and adventuring and that sort of thing. 

BM: And as part of that, there is an organization right there in Cincinnati that addresses that new phase.  It is called Move Beyond Surviving.  To what degree do you have any involvement with them, and that said, to what degree has it helped you.

EG: I have connected with Tom and with Dr. Kelly McLean.  They have started this group.  They do rock climbing, they do hiking, kayaking, so I was finally to do a six-mile hike at Hocking Hills, Ohio State Park with other breast cancer survivors.  It’s just a way of pushing each other and getting together on a different level outside of cancer, getting out in nature and getting out to see what God has provided us and being able to push each other, and there are all different levels.  It’s so much fun to get together with these women who are so incredibly strong.

BM: You referenced Tom and that ‘s Tom Tressler, who runs Move Beyond Surviving, and while its in-person activities are in and around, Cincinnati, Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky, its message can be seen on its website, www.movebeyondsurviving.org.  On that subject, if you would, tell us why this phase is important why it’s important to recognize it is so important to recognize it as a phase.

EG: I just think going out and if you are sedentary, doing something that may that represents a step forward to try something new and with a group of women who that have similar lifestyles as you in terms of what you have gone through and having camaraderie with each other and it is so important to get out there and maybe accomplish something that you haven’t ever done before in living life and feeling that high from just being in nature and being in a group that is just so supportive.

BM: Erin, we are going to bring this to a conclusion and we always do it the same way.  If you would, imagine you have an encounter with someone who has just been diagnosed with breast cancer.  There might be many things you would want to say, but if there is one thing that stands out above all others, what would it be?

EG: I would say be an advocate for yourself.  There are so many women, they go to the doctor, they don’t know about cancer and just sort of follow the herd.  I would get a second opinion, not because you don’t have cancer, but because you want to know that you are on the right treatment plan that your first doctor gave you.  It just will give you more confidence in your doctor and the decisions that you have made.  There will be a lot of decisions that you have to make in making sure that your cancer doesn’t come back.  A professional second opinion is always a good idea.

BM: Excellent.  Erin, thanks so much for a great story and thanks so much for a lot of great advice that should resonate with someone who just been diagnosed or again, for somebody who isn’t, because exercise and a healthy lifestyle is so important.  Thanks for being with us on Cancer Interviews.

EG: Thank you for having me.

BM: And that will wrap up this episode of Cancer Interviews.  As we always say, if you or a loved one are on a cancer journey, you are not alone.  There are people like Erin Gratsch and/or organizations like Move Beyond Surviving that are here to help, so, until next time, we’ll see you down the road.

Support Group:

Move Beyond Surviving: www.movebeyondsurviving.org

SHOW NOTES

TITLE:  Erin Gratsch, Two-time Breast Cancer Survivor – Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

A competitive marathon runner, Erin Gratsch, was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She thought the treatment cured the cancer, but six years later, a more aggressive form of breast cancer returned.  Erin countered with an aggressive treatment plan, including chemotherapy and radiation.  That, plus a positive attitude and the mental toughness of a marathoner, has brought Erin to survivorship.

Additional Resources:

Move Beyond Surviving: www.movebeyondsurviving.org

Time Stamps:

03:20 How Erin learned she had cancer.

05:00 The type of cancer with which she was diagnosed.

05:50 Breast cancer returned six years later.

07:04 Describes treatment options for her second diagnosis.

07:57 Names the toughest part of her chemotherapy treatment.

09:05 Erin tells us how she dealt with the mental and emotional part of her journey.

10:39 Says the mental toughness from distance running aided her cancer journey.

14:07 Explains how she maintained a positive attitude from the outset.

16:08 Erin describes her life after recovery.

KEYWORDS (tags):

breast cancer

mammography

cancer

chemotherapy

cancerinterviews.com

nipple sparing

bruce morton

ductal carcinoma in situ

unilateral mastectomy

erin gratsch

radiation treatment

invasive ductal carcinoma

chemo