Each year in the United States, almost 40,000 women lose their battle with breast cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. But one El Dorado woman, mother, wife, educator and survivor, has lived to tell the story of her fight with one of the most lethal forms of the disease.
Christa Erickson spends her days as a teacher’s aide at Towanda Elementary School, practicing phonics and numbers with young students.
However, before Erickson was in the business of education, she was a photo technician at Color Central Photo Lab in Wichita.
It was during this time that she was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer.
After having a clean mammogram in January of 2009, Erickson had reason to believe her health was in check. This left her with ample time to focus on work and taking care of her four children.
But by March of that year she began to notice redness, swelling and heat in her breasts. Her doctor responded to this by prescribing a round of antibiotics, assuming she was suffering from a simple mastitis.
“It didn’t do anything at all,” Erickson said of the antibiotics.
She then went back to the doctor and was referred to a surgeon who performed a punch biopsy to determine just exactly what was going on.
On April 1 of 2009 Erickson got the worst news of her life via phone from her doctor’s office. She was suffering from life threatening inflammatory breast cancer.
“They called me with the news that it was cancer,” she said. “The doctors said that it was probably stage four because they thought it was in my lymph nodes.”
According to the ACS, diagnoses of inflammatory breast cancer are exceedingly rare, presenting themselves in only one to five percent of breast cancer patients.
Erickson recounted the moments just after receiving the call which would drastically shake her life for the course of the next year.
“I bawled,” she said. “They told me and I went out to the car and cried and called my husband, my mom and my sister.”
“It was just shocking.”
At the time, her two youngest children Cade and Cash were not even in middle school yet.
“My boys didn’t really understand it,” she said.
Erickson didn’t know it at the time, but her diagnosis was one that often comes too late.
“I didn’t think about dying,” she went on.
The average survival rate for IBC when diagnosed in late stages is 21 months. Though in the face of this reality, not only did Erickson beat the disease, but she was well and cancer free within a year.
She cried the day she received the news, like anyone would when faced with their mortality.
Though after the initial shock of being told she had cancer, Erickson set out with an indelible spirit in knowing she would survive.
“Part of it was attitude,” she said. “I didn’t take any negativity, and I didn’t even think about dying. I just thought, ‘Well this is just something we have to get through’”.
And she did get through.
Erickson began to undergo chemotherapy in September at Susan B. Allen Cancer Center. Her doctors were stunned at how rapidly the cancer cells responded to the treatments.
“They were amazed at how fast it worked because it immediately began shrinking,” she said.
After chemo, Erickson opted to have a double mastectomy to ensure that all of the cancer was removed from her body.
Just before the Christmas of 2009, Her fight with inflammatory breast cancer came to an end.
“After the mastectomy, I started radiation in the middle of November,” she said. “My last radiation treatment was on Christmas Eve. It was a good gift.”
She had won her life back. After five years of check-ups, in 2014, Erickson was informed by her doctors that she was cancer free.
Friend and fellow breast cancer survivor Renea Deharsh spoke to Erickson with reverence.
“She is somebody I look up to,” Deharsh said.
Erickson ultimately credits her survival to the love and support of her family at home.
“Even though I didn’t think about dying, there was always that thought in my mind,” she said.
As the disease ran its course, Erickson, not being a particularly religious person, relied heavily on her family.
“It was just my family,” she said. “We are all close. My kids are all awesome and my husband had been so supportive.”
Her four children, Shana, Codie, Cade and Cash, supported her throughout the disease’s duration.
Erickson’s husband Mike was particularly empathetic.
“I don’t think I realized how hard it was on him,” she said of her husband.
Erickson told of the days in the midst of her chemotherapy when her hair had begun to fall out. One day a girlfriend of Erickson’s, who is a hair dresser, shaved her head. In response, her husband then promptly went into the bathroom of their home and shaved his own beard and mustache.
She had never seen her husband with a clean shaven face.
“She came out of the bathroom and of course I cried,” she said. “We’ve got a picture of together with our shaved heads.”
Erickson and her husband celebrated their 20th anniversary on Wednesday, Oct. 12 of this year.
Erickson’s own mother suffered from lung cancer and ultimately fell victim to the disease. So although nothing is certain, Erickson continues onward.
“I think a positive attitude has a lot to do with it and the friendships and family,” she said. “I feel so much more patient now adays. I’m just relaxed more. I don’t worry about things as much and I try to enjoy things more.”
Erickson expressed her view that all women should check themselves regularly to ensure they are cancer free.
“Check yourselves monthly,” she said. “Be in touch with your bodies.”
For those who suffer from IBC, Erickson offered a piece of advice.
“I would tell them to talk to other people that have been through it,” she said. “There are so many unknowns and you want to know. Knowing some answers helps you to go through the process.”
Erickson now spends her days teaching, going for the occasional run, tending to life as it comes and moving forward with the knowledge that she is a survivor.