Romance writer, 37, reveals symptom that led her to discover her own breast cancer
As Victoria Lavine was writing her first romance novel, the plot of her own life story was about to take a distressing twist.
At 37, she was diagnosed with breast cancer this spring after unexpectedly finding a lump. The disease was “absolutely not” on her radar because she has no family history of breast cancer and is very healthy otherwise, she says.
“I regularly exercise, I eat an organic, homemade diet. I’m really the last person I would have thought to come down with this so young,” Lavine, who lives in in Portland, Maine, with her husband and daughter, tells TODAY.com.
“When I first was diagnosed, my gut reaction was, ‘This is a terrible thing.’ But as my journey has progressed, I feel so blessed because I’ve experienced the most incredible outpouring of love you can imagine. It just makes me believe in the romance of the world even more.”
Worrisome discovery
The former graphic designer says she’s had a lifelong secret passion for writing. She found the romance genre to be especially comforting during the COVID-19 lockdowns, so she wrote her own romance novel, landed an agent and plans to submit her manuscript in the next couple of months.
Oddly enough, one of Lavine’s main characters is a breast cancer researcher, so she had been researching breast cancer long before her own diagnosis: “I think my subconscious is trying to tell me something,” she says.
Then, there came the plot twist.
Like many women, Lavine experiences breast tenderness before her period. But in April, it was particularly acute in her left breast, so she did a self-exam in the shower. That’s when she found a small hard lump close to her chest wall.
What to know about warning signs and self-exams
The most common symptom of breast cancer is a new lump or mass, although most breast lumps are not cancer, the American Cancer Society notes.
Cancer often feels hard — like a lemon seed — can be any shape or size, and is usually immovable, explains Know Your Lemons, a nonprofit global organization for breast health education.
Less-well known symptoms of breast cancer include breast swelling, skin dimpling and nipple retraction.
The advice about breast self-exams can be confusing. The American Cancer Society and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists no longer recommend women at average risk for breast cancer do regular self-exams because they haven’t been shown to improve outcomes or save lives.
But the organizations still urge women to have “breast self-awareness” — or to know how their breasts normally look and feel. Any changes should be reported to a health care provider.
Most breast cancers are diagnosed after age 50, but about 9% of new cases in the U.S. are found in women younger than 45, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Up to 85% of breast cancers occur in women with no family history of the disease, studies have found.
More serious than expected
Lavine was concerned enough to go to the doctor, who told her it was probably a cyst. She underwent a mammogram, her first ever, and a breast ultrasound. The results were inconclusive, so a biopsy was performed, followed by an MRI. Doctors were optimistic the lump was benign.
“I kept hearing, ‘I don’t think it’s cancer,’ all the way up until the news after the biopsy, and everyone was surprised,” Lavine recalls.
The diagnosis: ductal carcinoma in situ, also known as stage 0 breast cancer. It accounts for about 20% of breast cancers, according to the American Cancer Society.
DCIS — which means the cells that line the milk ducts have become cancer, but haven’t spread into surrounding breast tissue — is highly curable, the organization notes.
“I felt like I dodged a really big bullet. But I was in denial at first. I was like, ‘Thank goodness this isn’t a super serious cancer.’ But it ended up being more serious than I expected it to be,” Lavine says.
Because the affected area of the DCIS was quite large, her surgeon recommended a mastectomy. The surgery took place on June 7. Lavine is still recovering but says the process has gone as smoothly as possible thanks to her family.
She stopped writing the day of her diagnosis but has since been able to resume, to her great relief. If Lavine were the heroine of her own romance novel, she says she’d definitely get the happily ever after, according to romance law.
“I do feel like I did get that to the most extreme degree: I don’t have to have chemo. I don’t have to have radiation, and I don’t have to have any hormonal therapies, so it is truly the best-case scenario and the happiest ever after I could hope for.”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
