LANCASTER, Pa. — Forty-seven-year-old Amy Ricords was diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2022. It was a Friday afternoon and she was on the back porch of her home with her childhood friend enjoying the weekend before her test results came in.
“I had convinced myself that it was going to be fine and it would be lovely just to have a really nice weekend and know that it was negative,” Ricords said.
Ricords was up-to-date on her annual screenings and is a big believer in preventative care. It was her physician who told her during one of her screenings she had highly-dense breasts which only a small percentage of women fell into.
After Ricords found out that she had highly-dense breasts, she qualified to get an MRI and annual mammograms. Every six months, Ricords would rotate between both screenings to make sure if anything appeared, she had the opportunity to act fast.
In one appointment while receiving an MRI, three masses were found in her left breast. From there, Ricords' journey to recovery began.
“At first, it was complete and total despair, because when you hear the 'C' word, you immediately think...'I'm going to die,'" Ricords said.
Ricords was diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which is a cancer that is confined to the milk ducts. It is the earliest stage of cancer where cells inside the milk ducts are abnormal. This kind of cancer does not spread but stays confined to the breast tissue.
“Because the cancer was confined to the ducts, I did not need to receive any preoperative radiation or chemo, I was a surgical candidate right out of the gate," Ricords explained. "I was presented with a lumpectomy versus a mastectomy. If I did a mastectomy, did I want reconstruction...I’d then meet with a plastic surgeon who then explained what those reconstruction options were.”
Ricords' grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer in her early twenties and lost both breasts by her 40s by having a mastectomy. Her grandmother's sister was also diagnosed with breast cancer at the same time but Ricords says she denied her symptoms and waited to get checked. The sister passed away before reaching 50-years-old.
“It’s remarkable that in the 1940s and the 1960s, they had mastectomies and she (her grandmother) did live to be 96 years old,” Ricords said.
Following in the footsteps of her grandmother, Ricords decided to have a double mastectomy, removing both the left breast with three masses and the right which hadn’t detected cancer at the time.
Ricords told FOX43 that once the right breast was removed, a very small tumor that hadn’t been detected in an MRI or mammogram was found making Ricord relieved that she chose to remove both breasts.
While removing the tumors, Ricords also decided that she would have DIEP, also known as flap reconstruction surgery, at the same time. DIEP flap is when fat, skin, and blood vessels are cut from the wall of the lower belly and moved up to the chest to rebuild the breast.
“Reconstruction for me brought back normalcy,” Ricords said. "Even though I know that every day when I look in the mirror, I know that it's not the original me. It still makes me feel normal in clothes, and heaven forbid a bathing suit someday."
Much of Ricords treatment was received at the Ann B. Barshinger Cancer Institute where she credits a lot of her healing, knowledge, and resources to her experience with breast cancer to.
“Every single individual that I encountered was professional and knowledgeable and truly caring," she said. "My plastic surgeon, my oncology surgeon, my medical oncologist, my nurse navigator, the individual who took me from pre-op to the LR, all of their names run through my head. I think about them regularly because I can appreciate how hard their jobs are."
Ricords is recovering every day but wanted to share her story to bring awareness to breast cancer and urge women to follow the recommended guidelines for preventative care.
“For me, my story would be very different," she said. "My story would be very, very different. Had I not done what my physicians were recommending, I can't say enough about doing the same for every woman out there. Don't skip it. It's uncomfortable. It's not pleasant. It's time-consuming, and I get it, but do what you need to do."