By Nelson A. King
Though she has a family history
of breast cancer, Jamaican
Pauline F. Thomas never
expected that she would be
diagnosed with the disease.
“Interestingly, prior to being
diagnosed with breast cancer,
in March 2007, I decided to
cut my hair very short, as it
was the style being worn at
that time and, most of all, I
was spending too much time at
the hair dresser,” Thomas, 69,
a 14-year breast cancer survivor
and Brooklyn resident, told
Caribbean Life on Monday.
“I would be one of the first
persons on a Saturday morning
(at the hair salon) and still leaving
in the afternoon,” added
Thomas, who hails from Sherwood
Content in the Parish
of Trelawny in Jamaica. “The
time spending in the hair salon
was getting to me. Unknowingly,
cutting my hair short
was God’s way of preparing me
for what was to come.”
Thomas said she clearly
remembered pulling her shopping
cart up the stairs on “this
particular Saturday — Saturdays
seem to be the day of new
beginnings for me — when
I felt a sharp pain in my left
breast.
“Knowing my family history,
I immediately went inside and
examined myself,” she said. “To
my horror, I discovered a lump.
I could not wait for Monday to
come, so that I could go to my
PC (primary care physician) at
Beth Israel Hospital Medical
Center (renamed Beth Israel/
Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan)
Caribbean L 20 ife, OCTOBER 15-21, 2021
to get a referral for a
mammogram.”
With the mammogram
showing a lump, Thomas said
she was sent to see a specialist,
who scheduled her the next
day for another mammogram,
a sonogram, followed by an
ultrasound-guided fine needle
biopsy.
“This ultrasound-guided
needle test was extremely painful,”
she said. “I saw every stars
in the constellation without
missing any. After all my tests,
I was diagnosed with breast
cancer at age 54.”
Thomas said a lumpectomy/
partial mastectomy
was done on her left
breast on June 4, 2007.
She said she wanted
to do a full mastectomy,
but her doctor recommended a
lumpectomy and removal of a
lymph node to test for cancer.
“Fortunately, I was diagnosed
early, and the cancer
had not spread to any node,”
said Thomas, adding that treatment
consisted of a year of
chemotherapy, through port
placement, and six weeks of
radiation at Mount Sinai Hospital,
followed by the taking of
arimidex (oral tablets) for five
years.
She said chemotherapy
treatment was “no walk in the
park,” disclosing that she was
given three types, in stages:
taxotere, carboplatin and herceptin.
“I started with all three at
the same time — taxotere for
three months, carboplatin
for six months and continued
with herceptin to complete the
year,” said Thomas, stating
Jamaican-born cancer survivor, Pauline Thomas. Heidi
Thomas
that all treatment and surgery
were done at Beth Israel/Mount
Sinai Hospital. “I lost what little
hair I had after my second
treatment. Taxotere was the
harshest of all three drugs.”
She said she had some side
effects from chemotherapy
treatment — fainting spells,
port blockage, swelling of limbs
and loss of nails — with port
blockage being the worst.
Thomas said she “got a scare”
in June 2010 during a routine
mammogram, when some calcifications
were found.
Pauline Thomas, 14-year breast
cancer survivor, tells her story