ROCK SPRINGS — Jeannine Mizel found the lump in her breast on a Sunday night in late April 2019, during monthly self-checks she pledged to do in honor of a friend with breast cancer.
Mizel was diagnosed a week after she found the lump with stage 2B triple-negative breast cancer. Triple negative breast cancer tests negative for estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors and HER2, which means it can not be treated with hormone therapy. She said the tumor was aggressive and growing fast.
“If I had waited for my mammogram, it probably would have killed me,” she said.
Mizel said her tumor doubled in size in the 11 days between her biopsy and her PET scan. She was not due for her next mammogram for another four or five months.
Her self-checks began in January 2019, when Nancy Eaton, a friend of one of Mizel’s daughters, was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in her late 20s. Mizel said she promised herself she would check every month in Eaton’s honor.
“She saved my life,” Mizel said. “Because of the checks, I knew that it hadn’t been there last month.”
Mizel started chemotherapy in May in Utah, with the first round being named the Red Devil. She said the lump began shrinking after two or three treatments. She then had a lumpectomy in September and was declared cancer-free afterwards. She then completed radiation as a precaution, finishing in December.
Her radiation oncologist in Utah also ran the radiation unit at Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County. She said this allowed her to receive her daily radiation treatments in Rock Springs instead of living in Utah for weeks at a time.
“It was life-changing,” Mizel said. “Each treatment only took about 10 minutes, but you can’t miss a day.”
Mizel said the exhaustion from chemo was overwhelming. She said her family kept her going, including her husband Bob Mizel, who encouraged her to eat and stay positive, her daughters, who went with her to chemotherapy, her mother, and her church. Cowboys Against Cancer gave her a $3,500 grant, which covered most of her $4,500 out-of-pocket insurance costs.
Mizel retired earlier this month after 32 years at Solvay. She said the diagnosis changed her plans to retire to a warmer state and now she and her husband decided to stay in Wyoming near family.
Her advice to newly diagnosed patients is to stay positive, don’t let the negatives get in the way and know that you are going to make it. Her motto during treatment, borrowed from “Game of Thrones,” was “What do we say to the God of Death? Not today.”
That was my motto, ‘not today.’ Cancer is not going to take me today.
Jeannine Mizel
She also said women and men alike to do self-checks.
“You know your body the best, so you’re going to be the one that’s going to see or feel something that’s different before anybody else,” she said.
This is part of a series of SweetwaterNOW articles highlighting the stories of breast cancer survivors for October’s breast cancer awareness month. To share your story, email [email protected]
