CORNER BROOK, N.L. — Dr. Jennifer Lombard is most comfortable in a dark room reading radiology tests.
So, opening up to a reporter about her personal life is a little out of her comfort zone.
As a radiologist at Western Memorial Regional Hospital in Corner Brook, Lombard deals with breast cancer patients on an almost daily basis.
She knows how important having the most up-to-date equipment is to her job.
As a breast cancer survivor, she knows how important it is for patients.
The Western Regional Hospital Foundation will hold its annual Radiothon this Friday. This year, part of the focus is on raising money to purchase a 3D mammography unit for the hospital.
That is why Lombard is sharing her story.
"And sure enough it's my turn."
“I know the difference this equipment is going to make, both professionally and personally," she said. "So, I’m going to do whatever it takes to see this happen.”
Lombard was 41 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2014.
She was just back to work after being out for three weeks due to having undergone anterior cruciate ligament surgery when a mammography technologist came to her and said she was on the list for screening that day. The technologist wondered if she wanted to put it off until she was more mobile.
It was her second year of routine screening and she had no symptoms, so Lombard felt it was just as well to get it over with.
Looking at the images, the technologist told Lombard that she saw some calcifications that weren’t present a year ago.
Lombard walked over to the monitor to see for herself.
“And sure enough it’s my turn,” she recalled saying at the time “I now am a patient. I’m going to be on the other side of this."
Her life changed in that moment.
“The floor is taken out from under you," she said. "The world starts spinning and your mind goes to places you never thought were there.”
She showed the mammogram to her colleagues, who are also her friends. It was one of those friends who performed her biopsy, while others stood in support of one of their own.
It was a rough time for everyone around her. Her children were in kindergarten and Grade 2, so keeping things as normal for them as possible was a priority.
As she faced the diagnosis of breast cancer and what lay ahead, Lombard's medical background in terms of the academic knowledge she had amassed was helpful.
“But the personal experience of it is a whole other realm.," she said.
As a professional, her job is to deliver the information and make things as comfortable and easy for the patient as possible.
“To be on the other end and to be on the receiving part of that, it’s a different experience," she said “I had more knowledge about what was ahead of me and what my path was, but I’m still a patient.”
The waiting process was the hardest.
She underwent a mastectomy, but did not require radiation or chemotherapy.
She was put on a course of hormone therapy, which was a struggle.
“Dealing with the side-effects, but at the same time knowing it was saving my life,” she said of that rough period.
Five years out, she is now “on the other side of it,” the hormone therapy has been stopped and she has a clean bill of health with an excellent prognosis — all because her cancer was discovered early.
“I had much less invasive treatments because it was caught early,” she said.
Feelings of fear have been replaced with overwhelming joy and gratefulness.
"It's a hard disease, but our best defense against this disease is to find it early."
And the experience has made her a better doctor.
“To know that when I deliver this news to patients, I’ve walked that path as well,” she said. “I have a little bit of sense of what this feels like and what that moment is like for patients.”
Mammography has always been a passion of hers, but even more so now.
That’s why she’s thrilled to be a part of the campaign to raise money for the 3D mammography unit, the first of its kind for this province.
Lombard said it will dramatically affect how health professionals are able to deliver breast cancer care in the region.
The new machine will replace a 10-year-old 2D mammography unit that takes two images of a breast and gives a view of breast tissue collapsed down on itself.
The 3D unit will provide images that look at the breast at different levels.
That will allow radiologists to see things in a breast so much easier. They’ll be able to see cancers that are smaller, improving patient prognosis, possibly decreasing the need for invasive treatments and decreasing recall rates for women with dense breast tissues to have more imaging through mammography or ultrasound.
“It’s a hard disease, but our best defense against this disease is to find it early," said Lombard. "And that gives you your best chance and gives you a path where your treatment is less invasive.”
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Twitter: WS_DianeCrocker
Case for support
The Western Regional Hospital Foundation launched a two-year campaign to raise $1,003,000 to purchase a 3D mammography unit, a lymphatic mapping probe and general ultrasound in June.
Money raised through the radiothon, which airs on VOCM this Friday, will go to support those purchases.
