Hattie Grant knew breast cancer could come for her. With both grandmothers battling the disease three times each and her younger sister diagnosed at 35 with three different types simultaneously, Grant was prepared for the fight of her life.
"My paternal grandmother and my maternal grandmother both have had breast cancer three times, and my younger sister got breast cancer when she was 35, and she had three kinds at the same time," Grant said.
When Grant experienced discomfort in her left breast last November, she trusted her instincts despite clean mammogram results in January and months later. Her participation in a research study would prove life-saving.
Hear from Hattie as she speaks on her experience with breast cancer
"I saw a creator online on social media who was saying this is a new study that's happening right now called the Wisdom Study and what they're looking for are safer and more effective ways to help women with dense breasts and a family history of breast cancer," Grant said.
The study required mammograms, MRIs and genetic testing given her family history. After receiving a concerning genetic score, researchers strongly recommended an MRI.
"So they said, we really recommend that you get an MRI and that was the final push I needed to go in and get it done. And then when I went to get it done, they said we found something and I went in for a biopsy a week later and then two weeks after that they called me and said, you have cancer," Grant said.
The cancer was detected in her right breast. Grant consulted with breast surgeon Dr. Maen Farha at the MedStar Good Samaritan Breast Center, where her family history guided her decision.
"She wanted to have a bilateral mastectomy from the beginning," Farha said.
Grant's intuition about the pain in her left breast proved correct. During surgery, doctors discovered a second cancer that had evaded all screening methods.
"Surprisingly, when after the mastectomies, we found that she has a cancer on the left side that was not detected either by mammography exam or the MRI," Farha said. "It is a blessing picking up these tumors early and the other interesting thing, normally when we do a prophylactic mastectomy and we don't have a cancer, we don't do a sentinel lymph node biopsy. She asked to have a sentinel lymph node biopsy, and I had a discussion with her. I said, ok we'll do that. And we fortunately did that because it turned out that she had the cancer on the left side."
Grant credits both the Wisdom Study and Farha for catching her cancer early.
"It's so important. If I hadn't gone in for that MRI, I mean, I don't know what my future would look like if they hadn't caught it when they did. I don't know how quickly it would have spread. It's a hormone feeding. Feeding on hormone type of tumor," Grant said.
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