Drink less caffeine, they said.
The most important thing, she said they told her, is that breast cancer doesn’t run in the family.
But when the lump grew to the size of a golf ball and Beyer couldn’t sleep because she was in such pain, she went back to the same urgent care in January for a biopsy.
On Feb. 25, the cancerous results came back, she said, adding she knew the news was bad because doctors told her to bring somebody with her.
She brought her husband of one year, Nate, 26, an Orange County sheriff’s deputy, and her parents.
These days, Heather Beyer’s pushing on and trying to defeat the doctors’ grim prognosis, namely that she has only “months” to live if the cancer turns out to be of the small-cell nature.
“I started chemo a week ago, and it’s been rough,” she said. “It’s a lot more taxing on the body than I expected. I expected to be more functional at a much quicker rate. But I’m exhausted all the time. I can’t really stand ever. I constantly feel like I’m going to get sick, but I never get sick. The medications have come a long way, so I’m not as sick as I probably should be, but it’s still a bummer.”
Beyer said there were never any signs or symptoms that she might have cancer aside from that small lump, which she found in the top inside corner of her left breast.
But since the ordeal, she said she’s learned a great deal.
“Don’t ever be satisfied with the first answer,” said Beyer, an Aliso Viejo resident and graduate of Woodbridge High School in Irvine. “If you notice that something’s wrong with you, then there could be something wrong with you. You’re the best determiner of your body. Remember that.”
