DELPHOS — To walk into the Brian and Michele Altenburger home and see 4-year-old Brianna Altenburger playing with her twin sisters, Avery and Brooke, one would never suspect how much this family has overcome in the last year.
Breast cancer survivor Michele was 23 weeks pregnant with the twins last May and going through the usual OB/GYN doctor visits, including a breast exam. Approximately a week and a half later, while doing breast self-exams most doctors recommend to their female patients, she discovered a lump in her breast.
“At first I thought it was just changes in my body due to being pregnant but I made an appointment and had an ultra-sound done at the Women’s Wellness Center. On June 13, I was told I had an invasive aggressive type of breast cancer,” Michele explained.
Michele’s OB/GYN doctor, Vanessa Stallkamp, sent her to James Cancer Institute in Columbus for treatment. The OB/GYN doctor at the institute, Dr. Charles Shapiro, informed her that breast surgery would put the twins at risk with a 50-50 chance that she would carry them to term, so chemo treatments were a better option.
“They only see one or two pregnant breast cancer patients a year come there for treatment and in the 10 years Dr. Shapiro has been there, never one carrying twins. Even some of the nurses there didn’t know pregnant patients could received chemo treatments,” Michele related.
And so her ordeal began. She traveled to Columbus for chemo treatments and underwent scans to make sure the twins were developing properly while seeing her OB/GYN doctors in Lima and Columbus.
“I went every three weeks for three months. I was fortunate to be as far along in my pregnancy as I was; Dr. Shapiro said babies are pretty resilient,” Michele added.
She said she did not have too many side effects from the treatments.
“I was very tired anyway and they did give me medication for the nausea. I did have mouth sores after the first round of treatments and I did lose my hair. And I developed what they call ‘chemo brain’ — I couldn’t focus and was zoned out,” she explained.
Since Michele was carrying twins, her doctors recommended she stop working in July when she was 28 weeks pregnant. Her last chemo treatment was done on Aug. 31. Since twins are usually born early, she could then have her breast surgery done and that date was set for Sept. 15.
But the twins had a different plan. They hung right in there until term and were born Sept. 14, both perfectly healthy.
Finally, two months later, Michele had a modified breast removal, had 31 lymph nodes removed and had breast reconstruction at the same time. Her husband, Brian, found it interesting that doctors used fat from her stomach for the reconstruction “like having a tummy tuck,” he said.
While all Michele’s cancer tests were clean in November, she did undergo a three-week preventative round of chemo treatment in December to kill any lingering cancer cells. Due to her surgery and treatments she was on a two-pound weight lift limit for awhile but is thankful both she and the twins came through the ordeal and are healthy.
Her husband, Brian, reflected in thankfulness for his wife and the babies,
“I’ve changed my way of thinking about local money raised for cancer should stay local. If it weren’t for the technology that has been developed so doctors could find new ways to treat cancer, I might not have my wife and babies,” he said.
If Michele is feeling up to it, she will walk in the Survivors Lap at the Relay for Life today.