Lake Mary sisters, mom thankful they beat breast cancer

Nov. 26--The three sisters from Lake Mary and their mother all share a ready smile, a good nature and a quick wit. They also have something else in common: breast cancer.

The threat that is the No. 2 cancer killer among women led each of the women to have both of their breasts removed. The sisters all had double mastectomies in the space of four months. Today, they and their mother are oddly grateful.

The fact that breast cancer runs in the family -- a total of nine women in three generations -- meant they were on the lookout, caught it quickly and had one another to help them through a rough time.

Donna Patrick, a retired schoolteacher who is 74, had already had her five children -- three daughters and two sons -- when she learned she had breast cancer in 1990.

Though the news wasn't welcome, Patrick wasn't surprised: Her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy. Three of Patrick's four sisters and one aunt also had had the disease.

"I was just waiting for it to happen," Patrick said. "The minute I felt a lump, I knew." She didn't hesitate to have a mastectomy and one breast removed. She had the second one removed a year later.

Her concern then was for her daughters, whom she encouraged to have regular breast exams.

And they did, starting at age 35.

The results had been fine until December 2011. That's when Jill Leitke, the youngest daughter, then 47, learned she and her mom shared more than their curly hair.

Leitke, a stay-at-home mom from Winter Haven, had Stage 2 cancer in one breast. She underwent a double mastectomy that month.

Two weeks after she got her diagnosis, her oldest sister, Tracy O'Connor, then 50, got the same news. Though her mammogram was clear, an MRI showed a suspicious mass; a biopsy turned up an aggressive cancer.

"Take them both," she told cancer surgeon Michael Yurso of Orlando, who ultimately performed surgery on all four women. She had a double mastectomy that February.

"Because Jill had just been diagnosed, it didn't hit me as hard, and we caught it early," said O'Connor, a law clerk who lives in Longwood.

Figuring it was only a matter of time for her to get the same news, the family's middle sister decided not to wait. Though Mindy Patrick's mammogram was clear, she opted -- after talking the decision over with three doctors -- to have her breasts removed as a preventive measure in March 2012. She was 48.

Soon after, Mindy Patrick, a Marriott manager who lives in Lake Mary, got a call: Despite her clear screenings, pathology tests had uncovered the same aggressive cancer in her breast tissue. She had dodged a bullet.

"Our living room was a hospital," said Donna Patrick, referring to the months of recovery and chemotherapy that followed. "We don't dwell on it," she said. "In fact we don't discuss it much other than to share breast jokes."

"Like the joke's on me," Mindy Patrick said. "They all took a wager on how much my breasts weighed because they were big."

All the women but Leitke have had breast reconstruction, and she hopes to once her insurance cooperates.

Unusual as it is to have all four women in one family struck by the same cancer, odder still is for them all to have the same doctor and live in the same area.

"I've never seen anything like it in 25 years of practice," Yurso said.

Though cancer clearly runs in this family, Jill and Mindy have both been tested for the BRCA gene and don't have it. The other two women haven't had the test.

The BRCA gene is linked to a greater than 85 percent chance of developing breast cancer and is what led to actress Angelina Jolie famously having her breasts removed as a preventive measure.

However, all the women's cancers were the same: infiltrated ductal carcinoma, said Dr. Lee Zehngebot, an Orlando oncologist who treated the sisters. "All their cancers were potentially life-threatening."

"We all tend to think of the BRCA gene and believe that if that isn't there, then there is no inherited risk," Zehngebot said. "Clearly that's not true."

More than 90 percent of women who develop breast cancer do not have a family history. A woman with no family history has a 5 percent to 7 percent chance of developing breast cancer by age 70, Yurso said. For women with a family history, the risk goes up to 10 percent to 13 percent.

For those who do have a family history, certain lifestyle behaviors can help keep the risk at bay, including regular exercise, not carrying excess weight, not smoking, not drinking to excess, having children earlier in life and breast-feeding, he said.

For their part, Donna Patrick and her daughters are just thankful to have breast cancer behind them.

As they took turns saying what they were grateful for this year, the answers came easily:

"I'm thankful for all the good that's come of this," said Donna Patrick, "the closeness that has come from the shared experience."

"I'm thankful we're alive," O'Connell said.

"I'm thankful that I've been able to share my story and help other women through a tough time," Leitke said.

"I'm thankful for my sisters," said Mindy Patrick, "because they saved my life."

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