Breast cancer survivor wants Tennessee high schools to teach how to do self-exams
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The nurse practitioner's words jarred her: "Honey, no matter what happens, God is going to use you through this."
Oh no, Jessica Baladad thought, this is serious.
"Can I pray over you?" the nurse practitioner asked. Baladad nodded slowly.
As words poured out imploring God for healing and peace, tears streamed down Baladad's face: "I wasn't ready to tell anyone I had cancer."
After all, she was only 33.
And in great shape.
No drinking. No smoking. Eating healthy. Running marathons and lifting weights.
But you can't outrun your family DNA.
Nine women on her dad's side — including her grandmother and two aunts — had breast cancer. Five of them died.
"I don't say breast cancer runs in my family," Baladad said, "it sprints."
In the last three years, Baladad has gone through a double mastectomy, a hysterectomy, 16 rounds of chemotherapy, 24 rounds of radiation and painful reconstructive surgery.
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She has come out the other side in remission and with a new mission — getting other young women to get annual screenings and to do monthly breast self-exams. And she's fighting for legislation that mandates Tennessee schools to teach teens how to do the exams.
"Women my age and younger are Instagram-ing their breasts, but not mammogram-ing them," Baladad said.
"As I've been telling them my story, they kept saying, 'What do you mean you do a self breast exam?' No one was doing them, not even my older friends," she said.
"So I'm like, 'OK, I've got to do something about this."
Baladad had been doing self-exams in the shower since she was 18. Her exam in April 2018 is the one where she found a lump that turned out to be cancerous.
But Baladad didn't do anything about the lump for a couple of months. Well, besides worry about it.
'Google said I was fine'
When she found the lump, Baladad's heart started to race. She felt dizzy and nauseated, so she sat in the shower to try to calm herself down.
Oh my God, she thought, this is it. Cancer.
Baladad went straight to to an online search engine and typed "breast cancer symptoms." What she found was encouraging. No, she didn't have a rash. No indentations, no bleeding, no nipple discharge.
"So Google said I was fine," Baladad said with a shrug.
And just a few weeks earlier, she had a breast exam during her annual physical, and the doctor marked "N" for normal.
So, even though she obsessively kept poking and touching the growing lump in her breast, Baladad kept telling herself she was fine. Until she wasn't.
Two months later, Baladad started taking naps, for as long as two hours at a time. She woke up from the naps feeling groggy, like she needed to go back to sleep.
After one of her longer naps, Baladad scrolled through instant messaging app Snapchat and saw a video of an acquaintance around her age shaving her head. Baladad found out that woman was battling breast cancer — and that triggered a wave of fear.
Baladad knew she had to go back to the Sumner County Health Department.
A nurse practitioner confirmed there was a lump, prayed over Baladad and sent her to get a mammogram, a low energy X-ray used to detect masses in the breast.
The radiologist was direct. I’ve seen this before and I’m pretty sure it’s cancer, he said. Meet me at Centennial Women's hospital at 8 tomorrow morning for a biopsy.
Baladad grabbed his arm. Thank you for telling me, she said.
"I know that sounds weird," she said, "but even though it wasn’t favorable, I finally had an answer. I was driving myself crazy convincing myself I was OK, and I wasn't."
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You can cheat on me if you want
Baladad called her dad but couldn't bring herself to tell him, in part because one of his sisters was dying of breast cancer then. She just handed the phone to a tech, who repeated what was told to Baladad.
A biopsy confirmed it was cancer. Her mother cried. Her husband became somber. Most friends rallied around her.
But two close friends drifted away, introducing her to the term "cancer ghosting."
Balad describes it as when "friends freak out and can't handle your mortality."
Her hair started falling out after the second chemo treatment. She started piling what was left into a bun on top of her head, but that gave her huge headaches.
Three weeks in, Baladad had her friend Brandi Gramse give her a buzz cut.
"I felt instant relief." she said. "I realized I was hanging onto something that was doing me no good. It felt good to take control of that part of it."
Still, Baladad cried in the shower afterward. Her friends cried in the living room at the same time.
She finished chemo on New Year's Eve 2018. Doctors then gave her a choice — lumpectomy, single mastectomy or double mastectomy, strongly suggesting the last option since cancer is prevalent in her family.
Surgeons removed both breasts three weeks later.
"I thought about my aunts and my grandmother, and I thought, I have to go hard. I’m finishing the battle that started with them."
After radiation treatments, doctors declared Baladad cancer free in spring 2019. She had a hysterectomy last year to further reduce chances the cancer would come back.
While grateful and relieved, Baladad said she felt insecure about her appearance. At one point, she turned to her mild-mannered, kind, loving husband, Neil, and told him he could cheat on her — just don't tell her about it.
"I’m losing my hair, I’m losing my breasts. I have no eyelashes, my fingernails were destroyed," she said.
"I’m becoming a shell of myself. Why would you want to be around me? I was not the person he married."
The offer to cheat stung her husband.
"That's crazy talk," he said. "I'm never entertaining that idea."
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'New boobies'
Neil Baladad said he was happy the double mastectomy would greatly reduce his wife's odds of a cancer reoccurrence.
"So if she's flat chested for the rest of my life? That's fine with me," he said. "I told her, whatever you do, I'll be there to support you."
Still, Baladad eventually decided she wanted breast reconstruction surgery.
"Every time I looked at myself, I felt like less of a woman," she said.
In February, Baladad had a DIEP flap surgery, where surgeons take fat, skin and blood vessels from the lower belly to rebuild breasts. She said it was the most physically demanding and painful part of her whole experience.
"But I don’t regret it. I’d do it all over again," she said.
"I love the results. I'm building my cancer revenge body. I’m going to come back looking and being better than I ever was before. I wanted to give the middle finger to cancer for trying to wreck my life."
Her husband said he is pleased for her.
"New boobies? Fantastic! I'm excited for her because she's very pleased with her new body," Neil Baladad said.
Throughout the experience, Baladad said she repeatedly was surprised to find out how few, if any, of her friends did monthly self exams.
Baladad said she discovered there were three reasons her friend didn't do self-exams — they didn't know how; they were afraid of what they might find; or they were afraid of their bodies.
Between chemo treatments, Baladad was in the shower and, while watching some of her hair go down the drain, the phrase "feel for your life" came to her. She immediately grabbed that online URL and the social media handles and launched an effort to teach women self-exams and to try to normalize them.
Baladad also created a Feel for Your Life app, which has about 2,500 downloads so far.
Teaching self-exams in schools
And now, she's taking her advocacy to the Tennessee legislature.
Baladad has recruited state Rep. Jason Hodges, a Democrat, to introduce a bill to mandate that Tennessee high schools teach students how to do self exams for breasts, skin and testicles.
The bill is based on one introduced in the New York state legislature earlier this year, Hodges and Baladad said.
"Early detection is obviously the way to save lives," Hodges told The Tennessean, which like Paste BN is a part of the Paste BN Network.
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But Hodges might get some pushback from national cancer-fighting organizations like the American Cancer Society and Susan G. Komen For the Cure, which stopped advocating for breast self-exams around 2008.
Those organizations and others pointed to some overseas studies indicating self-exams do little if anything to prevent breast cancer deaths. The groups instead advocate for "breast self awareness," for women to be familiar with their breasts and to report any changes — or any symptoms like dimpling or nipple discharge — to their doctors right away.
Still, Hodges and Baladad are undeterred and said they'll move forward to try to mandate that Tennessee schools teach self-exams.
"I think they’ll be some resistance," Hodges said, "but the fact is high schoolers are well aware of their body parts, and keeping those bodies safe is a good thing.
"I would think a large part of the General Assembly would be supportive of it, and hopefully, a majority."
Regardless of what happens with the bill, which has yet to be introduced, Baladad said she'll continue to share her story and to encourage women to do self-exams.
"I want to share my story to show that, yes, cancer is scary, but you can be empowered through it. I just want to get the information out there. I feel called to do it."
Follow Brad Schmitt on Twitter: @bradschmitt.