‘I’d never had a mammogram before’: Chesterfield mother battles breast cancer while pregnant with third son
VENN
CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) -- Breast Cancer Awareness Month has a whole new meaning for one Chesterfield mom. Lacey Kearney, 33, learned she was pregnant with her third son in January, but just weeks later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
For over a year, Kearney and her husband Patrick have lived in their Moseley home. Just 32 years old at the time, Kearney was putting her now 5-year-old son, Tripp, in bed when she found something abnormal.
"He kind of reached up to tell me good night and his hand kind of touched my chest and it just brought my attention to this little place that I’d never felt before," she said. "Just like a small knot, it felt like a marble.”
The Kearney family.
Things moved fast.
She got a mammogram, a biopsy and a call. Her doctor said it was malignant breast cancer, meaning it could spread if not treated fast.
“The radiologist was like, ‘We need to have you meet with a surgeon as soon as possible.’”
She got it removed in March and started chemotherapy soon after at the Virginia Cancer Institute.
She did four rounds Adriamycin chemotherapy, an aggressive form nicknamed “The Red Devil” because of its bright red color. She then did nine rounds of a less aggressive chemotherapy. Her side effects from the chemo were mild, and made it easier for the family to be normal.
With bi-weekly doctor's appointments and ultrasounds, Kearney knew if something went wrong with her pregnancy, she’d know about it.
“I know and love my OB and trust her and then I was also seeing high-risk maternal fetal medicine doctors," she said.
She tried her best to keep life normal and include her two little ones, Tripp and her 3-year-old Beckham.
“When I shaved my head, we kind of had like a little party in the driveway with our neighbors and my hairdresser here with clippers to help us so they actually got to use scissors and like cut my hair," she said.
Kearney let her two boys, Tripp and Beckham, cut her hair.
Holland was born happy and healthy in September.
Kearney, an associate broker and realtor with Providence Hill Real Estate and group leader for Grace Homes Realty Group, didn’t miss a beat.
“September was my seventh year in real estate as a career and this will be my most successful year in business despite everything that I had going on," she said.
Beckham, 3, Tripp, 5, and Holland.
On Saturday, Oct. 18, she’ll be at the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk in Monroe Park. The realty group has one of the biggest teams. She's one of four women at the firm diagnosed: Jennifer Hass, Meg Traynham and Dawn Von Bechmann who sadly passed away and had her celebration of life last week.
Kearney said Von Bechmann referred her to surgeons and was someone to lean on.
“She was just extremely, extremely insightful," she said.
She said couldn’t have done her business this past year without her team at Providence Hill.
Kearney said there is history in her family of breast cancer, but not this young.
“Yes, high risk, but even though I was high risk, normally mammograms don’t start for high-risk patients until 35, so I’d never had a mammogram before," she said.
In November, Kearney will get a double mastectomy and reconstruction surgery a couple of weeks later.
