“I had my annual exam in December of 2013,” Hoyle said. “They found a complex cyst on an ovary and they checked me for cancer and it came back fine.”
But a little over a month later Hoyle found a tumor on her breast, so her doctor scheduled a mammogram on Feb. 5 and a biopsy a few days later. On Feb. 14, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“When the pathology report came back, I found out I had triple negative breast cancer,” Hoyle said. “It was a very aggressive type and the cells were multiplying quickly.”
Hoyle, who described herself as “fairly healthy,” most all of her life, was suddenly faced with her own mortality.
“The best way I can explain it is that it was like an out of body experience,” she said. “Everyone was telling me I looked fine, but I knew I was not.”
Hoyle’s two children, Lauren and Matthew, were just 9 and 6 at the time of her diagnosis and as she began treatment for this fast moving form of cancer, she had to go on disability leave from her job with Kettering Health Network.
“Treatment was brutal,” Hoyle said. “I started chemo in March and I was so sick that I had to get home care. I had four months of chemo and lost all of my hair.”
The second half of Hoyle’s chemotherapy treatment involved a different medication that caused severe bone pain. And after that treatment ended, she had a month waiting period before surgery for a double mastectomy.
“I decided to be more aggressive because I didn’t want the cancer to come back,” Hoyle said. “They took both breasts and 20 lymph nodes out of my left arm. I started radiation at the end of August that year.”
And though Hoyle heard radiation would be easier on her body, it left her exhausted and weak. But by October of 2014, the treatments were complete and the scans in December showed she was cancer free.
“Recovery was very hard because you say you don’t care (about not having breasts) and you just want the cancer out of you,” Hoyle said. “But having prosthesis make you look bigger and a lot of things are geared for older women. And people don’t’ realize how traumatic reconstruction is.”
Today Hoyle is cancer free, after having basal cell skin cancer removed in 2015 and she is back to work as a NICU nurse at Kettering Health Network and volunteering with the Cancer Advisory Board at Kettering, a group of survivors helping to design the new cancer center, which will be opening in December.
“It’s been wonderful for us,” Hoyle said. “We meet once a month, and we are working to make it better for patients. We know what works and what doesn’t work. My advice to other cancer patients would be to take it day by day and celebrate each accomplishment and each day is an accomplishment.”
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