Polson resident urges regular mammogram tests

Marret Christ-iansen didn’t know she was sick when she went to a routine doctor’s appointment in 2011.

“It was at the very end of 2011 that I went for a mammogram,” she recalled.

The mammogram, she said, came back abnormal.

Christiansen said that she felt healthy in the time leading up to her appointment. She stresses she didn’t feel any lumps or have any pains during routine self exams.

“I didn’t feel sick at all,” she said.

Christiansen felt so healthy that she was considering calling the doctor’s office to reschedule her appointment, but kept the time at her mother’s encouragement.

A flat mass was discovered that covered the entire top of Christiansen’s breast, extending under her arm.

Following a biopsy, Christiansen said that her doctors told her if she had not had her mammogram, she would have had about four months to live.

“I didn’t even know I was sick,” she said.

After she rang in the New Year, Christiansen started 2012 by having a double mastectomy as well as lymph nodes removed.

She was then sent home to heal after the surgery, she said, because her doctors couldn’t start administering chemotherapy until she was properly healed.

Experiencing complications from the surgery, Christiansen noted that the breast cancer she had-which was one of the most aggressive forms-would come back if she wasn’t able to start chemo right away.

Deciding to let her body heal, Christiansen said she needed a year and a half of the “harshest chemo” followed by 33 rounds of radiation.

Shortly after starting chemo, she began experiencing allergic reactions to the medicine.

Before each round of chemo, Christiansen was given Benedryl, but even then she broke out in hives.

“We did get through the chemo,” she said, which lead to radiation treatment.

Radiation is cumulative, meaning it “builds up inside you,” Christiansen explained.

About halfway into the treatment, “something bizarre happened,” she remembered.

Water blisters around the radiation site began to form.

Doctors decided to stop the treatment for two weeks until the blisters disappeared.

“Then they restarted but they told me it’s possible that none of the (previous) radiation did anything because after the 15 days” could have a similar affect to starting from the beginning.

The complications didn’t stop there.

Completing radiation, Christiansen said she was supposed to be a pill form of chemo for a decade.

“I’m allergic to each of the four (chemo) pills,” she said, adding that doctors around the country became involved in trying to figure out the components of the medication, hoping to break it down so her body would accept it.

No one knew what was going to happen, Christiansen said.

Throughout the obstacles in the way, Christiansen said that she kept a sense of humor.

Going to Missoula for treatment, she said she would visit with people and joke around with the nurses.

“If you can say you had a good time at chemo, it was as good as it could get,” Christiansen said.

She kept a positive attitude, too.

“You have a choice,” she began.

“If you have round-the-clock pity parties, you still have to go through chemo and radiation.”

The process following the cancer diagnosis doesn’t change, and people can make the best of it or not.

“It’s important to have a strong and positive attitude, she said.

Christiansen shares her story full of challenges to others, urging them to get mammograms, even if they don’t feel lumps or discomfort.

Keeping a strong will is something she encourages other patients, telling them they can make it.

“You’re stronger than this beast,” she said.