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Apryle + family on Hatteras Beach

If you haven’t realized it from all the pink being posted around the US here lately, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. In honor of this, we’d like to allow our most recent hire at our NC Coast location to share a bit about her own experience. So, let me introduce you to Apryle — graphic designer, marketing manager, widowed mom of 3 and breast cancer warrior.

APRYLE’S STORY

Hi, everyone! My journey through this dreaded diagnosis really started in late July, 2022, the day I lost my husband in the most traumatic way you can imagine. To say it blindsided us would be an understatement. He was the love of my life, and the pain from my grief has been unreal. Fast forward 9 months when I discovered a large lime-sized lump in my right breast. It took 2 months to get in to see my doc and then to get a mammogram and ultrasound, but things progressed quickly after that.

I was officially diagnosed in June 2023 with stage 3, grade 3 triple negative IDC (Invasive Ductal Carcinoma). This type of cancer grows wicked fast, so time was of the essence. Less than one year after losing my beloved husband, I found myself sitting in a chemo chair being injected with poison in order to save my own life.

UNDERSTANDING MY DIAGNOSIS

IDC is the most common type of breast cancer with nearly 297,790 new diagnoses here in the US every year, but triple negative is one of its rarest subsets. Approximately 10-15% of IDC results in negative markers for all 3 known receptors: progesterone, estrogen and HER-2 protein. Out of those, gene mutations known as BRCA drive the huge majority.

Mine was not only triple negative but negative for the BRCA mutations, and I did not “fit” any of the known risk criteria. I underwent a deep diagnostic mammogram within those first weeks after my husband passed away and received the all clear. All this is to say that there is a lot we don’t understand yet about breast cancer, what causes it and how to prevent it, but both my oncologist and I are certain that my grief and elevated cortisol due to stress played a critical role.

MY TREATMENT

My treatment consisted of neoadjuvent chemotherapy for 6 months, followed by extensive surgery and reconstruction, 16 rounds of radiation and a year of immunotherapy. I’m humbled and deeply grateful to say that today I am considered cancer-free, which I don’t say boastfully, as if I had any role in that outcome. I have friends right now fighting for their lives, and I’ve also lost some along the way. Some are being denied potentially life-saving experimental treatments due to insurance denials. Others are suffering life-altering side effects from therapies and surgeries.

LIFE AFTER A DIAGNOSIS

I live here by Camp Lejeune, one of the nation’s largest Marine bases, and I’ve had the privilege of making many friends who have served in conflicts overseas. Just as a person who goes through the trauma of a military battle may suffer physical and/or emotional scars from their experience, battling cancer is much the same. Your life is never the same after war.

I’m posting some photos below from my journey, but please don’t misunderstand the smiles. The outside rarely reflects what’s going on inside, and the past two years have been hellacious. From losing every shred of my hair (even nose hair!), to being constantly sick and unsure if I was ever going to feel well again, to worrying over the financial burden of cancer treatment, to processing the loss of my breasts in order to save my life, to the deep fear of leaving my children orphaned… a photo can’t capture these things. The smiles are our armor. They make us feel braver than we are.

WHY CARE ABOUT BREAST CANCER AWARENESS?

Breast Cancer Awareness month may not mean much to you unless you or a loved one has known what it’s like to receive this diagnosis. Awareness of anything should encourage empathy, which equates to compassion moved to action. I hope that even if you’ve never been touched by the disease of cancer, stories like mine will compel you to support people who have, to donate to research that could save countless lives, to contribute to groups like The Reel Housewives of Topsail Island who financially provide for these warriors.

THE GIFT OF GRATITUDE

Thank you for allowing me to share with you. It’s my husband’s birthday today, which seems fitting to share my cancer story publicly for the first time. I hope he’d be proud of me for not giving up, for enduring. I’m proud of me, and more importantly, I’m thankful. My experiences have taught me how unpredictable, how inexplicable life can be. It makes no sense that you can lose something, lose something else and somehow gain something new. But in some strange way, cancer saved my life. It brought me this gift of gratitude, and that, my friends, is what heals us more than anything.

If you have a loved one battling breast cancer and feel comfortable sharing their name below, I’d love to pray for them. And I appreciate yours as well.

— apryle💛

my heart on Topsail Beach
my heart on Topsail Beach
my family
my family
donating my hair
donating my hair
my awesome mohawk
my awesome mohawk
wearing ice packs to prevent neuropathy during chemo
wearing ice packs to prevent neuropathy
my favorite volunteer at the chemo clinic
my favorite volunteer at the chemo clinic
with my friend Mo at the RHOTI Bike Fundraiser
with my friend Mozhdeh at RHOTI’s 2023 bike fundraiser
getting poison from a witch on Halloween Day
getting poison from a witch on Halloween Day
Radiation treatment #12
Radiation treatment #12
remembering Kristen
remembering my brave friend Kristen
climbing again after surgery
climbing again after surgery
sporting my new hair
sporting my new hair

REFERENCES:

https://www.bcrf.org/blog/invasive-ductal-carcinoma-idc-breast-cancer/

https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/breast-cancer/about/types-of-breast-cancer/triple-negative.html

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