Winchester Woman Battles Cancer

"Two days later they called me and said I have the mutation, and I had already decided that I would have all preventative surgeries."

The Diagnosis

Dobbelaar, of Winchester, was diagnosed with the BRCA 1 mutation in January 2011. It was not long before she underwent a double mastectomy, as she had her breasts surgically removed that May.

"I had the preventative mastectomies and had multiple infections. It was really hard. Didn’t go for the next surgery right away and then I did it," she recalled. "(The surgeons) take out your ovaries and your fallopian tubes and they found a tumor on my fallopian tube, which they told me was very, very rare and cannot be primary. 

"They did not have a treatment for it. They treated me for ovarian (cancer) and just let me in there, and they basically said we’re going to go back in and do an entire hysterectomy and take other things, followed by chemotherapy in two weeks."

More Surgeries

After experiencing two severe post-mastectomy infections between May and September in 2011, Dobbelaar said she underwent yet another surgical procedure at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, as she had an hysterectomy on Valentine's Day in 2012. 

"I started my surgeries at 39, so they say around 40 to 45 is the crucial time," she said. "I had a very, very small chance of having ovarian cancer…they call it the silent killer. My tumor was so small that in a traditional grab-it-and-throw-it-out (surgery) that they probably would not have found it."

Chemo Treatment

From March to August in 2012, Dobbelaar received chemotherapy at Massachusetts General Hospital. 

"I’m several months out and trying to recover from what is one of the more aggressive ones," Dobbelaar said of the chemotherapy. "It’s the chemo that passes the blood-brain barrier and literally shrinks your brain. They say it’s about a year and a half to two years to recover. 

"More than half of my family said you’re out of your mind to go all this way and it became my microphone because it got my other cousins to line up and get tested. They wouldn’t have, so I said I will take one for the team."

Laughter is the Best Medicine

It's been the little things that have helped Dobbelaar persevere in the face of adversity, including doing stand-up comedy and watching a particular daytime TV game show. 

"They say you can’t make a joke about this, that or the other thing and I said you can make a joke about anything," she said. "The only thing that made me feel better during my recovery, especially during the mastectomies which were awful, was watching ‘The Price is Right.’ The people on there are so excited and Drew Carey is so funny and I felt good for that hour."

Medical Issues

Among the health issues Dobbelaar is being treated for are kidney problems, hearing damage that will continue to decline and neuropathy. 

Dobbelaar, a Manhattan, N.Y. native, confessed that she has had "unfortunate symptoms" recently and likely will undergo a few ultrasounds to see what's happening with her body. 

"We've ruled out a few things already so we'll see what we find out here in the next couple of weeks," she said.

Dobbelaar, who lives in Winchester with her husband and son, said her son will get tested when he turns 18 and is allowed to. In addition to getting family members tested, she also tries to raise awareness about the potentially deadly mutations.

"It is a very different kind of cancer. I have a protein that is shutoff and filled with tumors so if you had eyelash cancer, for example, we have proteins in our body that are specific to eyelashes and every day the cells divide badly and it goes and it is a suicide bomber," she explained. "In the female reproductive system, cells are bad every day, suicide bombers go…it’s protein. If it’s mutation, it can’t shutoff. Mine was at zero. Most of my family died within a week…they were fine and then within a week they died."

Building Confidence

According to Dobbelaar, 91 percent of women do not return to sexual activity after undergoing the types of procedures she has gone through. She remains hopeful that that number will decrease over time so long as society is more supportive to women that have mastectomies and other surgical procedures done "because confidence is what will bring up your interest."

A Word of Thanks

While she has had to endure many tests and physical procedures and consistently work with several doctors along the way, Dobbelaar discussed how indebted she is to those taking care of her.

"I’ve received the most outstanding care," she said. "To go through this whole thing…it’s an amazing thing to go through a chemo unit and see just what one smile can do."