Silver Cross Hospital patient surviving rare breast cancer

A 70-year-old Oak Forest woman with two different breast cancers in one breast is doing well, and she gives the credit to her health care providers at Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox.

“They were amazing,” said Annamae Ginter, 70. “They cared for me, and they cared about me. I felt really comfortable in that hospital.”

For 10 years, Ginter had mammograms every six months to monitor a suspicious nodule. But the nodule turned out to be nothing, and Ginter was cleared for yearly mammograms.

At that year mark, “something nagged” inside Ginter, urging her to get that mammogram, she said. She said her mother was 64 when she died from breast cancer.

You’ve just got to do what they tell you to do. You don’t know what’s going to happen to you.”

—  Annamae Ginter of Oak Forest, breast cancer patient at Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox

Can you have two separate breast cancers?

Ginter scheduled a mammogram and subsequently learned she had cancer in her left breast – two different kinds of Stage II breast cancer in proximity to each other, said Lisa Gravitt, a staff nurse to breast surgeon Dr. Jennifer Young Gambla, who treated Ginter.

“It’s not so unusual to have two areas of the same type of cancer,” Gravitt said. “But to have different ones, that’s pretty rare. We don’t often see that.”

One breast cancer was triple-negative, an aggressive form of breast cancer without hormone receptors. The other breast cancer did have hormone receptors, for which Ginter now is taking Letrozole to block those hormones, Gravitt said.

Ginter has “no evidence of disease,” Gravitt said.

In addition to chemotherapy, Ginter had a double mastectomy. The right breast had a papilloma, a benign tumor, but Ginter “didn’t want to mess around with it” and had both breasts removed, Gravitt said.

Throughout the process, Ginter remained positive and adopted a “we’ve got to get through this together” attitude toward hospital staff and other patients receiving treatment, Gravitt said.

“We love Annamae; she’s so full of life,” Gravitt said. “She’s a really ‘get up and go’ person, even after a double mastectomy.”

The emotional struggles of cancer

Ginter recalled the day she had that fateful mammogram. She had just returned home when the phone rang. The voice on the other end said, “The doctor wants you to come back for more pictures.”

“I knew right away that something was wrong, that I had cancer,” Ginter said. “I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to die.’ ”

Ginter said she had a second mammogram followed by ultrasounds, biopsies, bloodwork and a CT scan.

She also called her primary care physician, Sunitha Avula, who practices with the Silver Cross Medical Group in Homer Glen. Avula referred her to Gambla, Ginter said.

Gambla practices at the University of Chicago Medicine Breast Clinic at Silver Cross Hospital. Gambla also referred Ginter to Dr. Simona Cosmina Chivu, an oncologist at the same breast clinic.

Ginter recalled shaking in fear and chastising herself for not continuing her twice-yearly mammograms. But she soon snapped out it.

Ginter said she told herself, “You can’t cry about it.”

“You’ve just got to do what they tell you to do,” Ginter said. “You don’t know what’s going to happen to you.”

The first dose of chemotherapy was the worst, Ginter said. She developed painful sores in her mouth and throat, which limited her ability to eat and drink that first month.

But Ginter said she received medicine for the sores, and the chemotherapy dose was lowered. From there, treatment was “a piece of cake,” she said.

Ginter completed treatment last December and had her bilateral mastectomy in January. She said she did not need radiation, although she did need therapy for lymphedema.

Her hair has since grown back, she’s looking forward to living to age 80 and traveling with her husband, Dominic.

Ginter said she encourages all women to get their screening mammograms.

For now, she is planning a trip to Iceland.

“I’ve always wanted to see the Northern Lights,” Ginter said.