Atlanta realtor embraces life after brush with breast cancer

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- It was in October 2001 when Atlanta resident Karen Eggers was shocked to discover a lump in her breast.

Not five months before, she'd had a mammogram that came back clear. Sure, she'd been feeling sluggish, "but the way everyone runs around these days, I figured it was normal," she said.

But, during a casual self-check, the now 45-year-old had found the lump.

"It scared me," she remembered. "I called and immediately went to the doctor. I guess your mind goes to the worst thing possible, especially when you've been feeling so tired."

Doctors performed a needle biopsy on the lump and sent Eggers down for an immediate mammography. Both tests came back positive. The tumor was 5 centimeters.

"They told me right there they recommended a lumpectomy, so I had the surgery the next week," Eggers said.

Following a biopsy on the tumor, however, her doctors recommended that she undergo a full mastectomy. "They wanted to get enough tissue to get clean margins around the lump and they didn't," she explained.

Two weeks later, she went through with the follow-up surgery.

"It was pretty quick, and they also did a sentinel node biopsy," a procedure in which the lymph nodes closest to a tumor are removed to see if the cancer has spread, Eggers said.

The node biopsy showed that the cancer apparently hadn't spread, but she went underwent chemotherapy anyway, because her hormone levels were unusually high, another indication of possible cancer spread.

"It was a pain. It makes you sick and you lose your hair, and you get sores all along your digestive tract," Eggers said of the chemotherapy. "But it's not the most unpleasant thing you go through in life, so you deal with it."

Despite the discomfort, Eggers found herself worrying that the treatment had ended too soon.

"You feel relieved, but at the same time you've got that fear in you, asking, 'Isn't there anything more you can give me?' "she recalled.

Those fears notwithstanding, Eggers has remained cancer-free ever since.

In a way, her bout with breast cancer freed her. "I've always been a risk-taker, but I'm more of one now," she said. "Every day is such a blessing."

For example, she has expanded her real estate business into Florida , and has started two real estate companies in the last three years.

She also serves as a counselor for women facing breast cancer.

"I tell them chemotherapy is your weapon you're going to use to fight the cancer," Eggers said. "It's yours. Don't be afraid of it. Embrace it and fight."

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