Ocean City’s Jennifer Pfander became advocate for mammograms after almost skipping the one that detected her breast cancer during COVID
OCEAN CITY — Ocean City resident Jennifer Pfander blew off her mammogram appointment at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, then thought better of it a few months later because she didn’t want to irritate her doctor.
She is more than glad she did. The mammogram led to the finding she had stage II breast cancer.
With the terrible knowledge of what could have been, Pfander, who had her final treatment Monday and will celebrate her 59th birthday March 14, has become an ardent advocate for women to be screened.
Pfander grew up in Ocean City and now lives in the family home with her husband, Mark, a registered nurse. She said everything was shutting down in April 2020 when her mammogram was scheduled. She skipped it.
“That was the throes of the pandemic,” she explained.
She waited, but in August, her primary care doctor appointment was coming up “and I knew (my doctor) wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t have all my ducks in a row, my blood work done, my testing done and I thought, ‘I’m not going to waste her time.’”
She scheduled the mammogram — late, but in time for the appointment.
Pfander had no reason to fear. No one in her family had suffered from breast cancer.
The mammogram detected a mass, but she still wasn’t worried because that happened before and it wasn’t malignant.
“I thought I would take the next step,” she said, which was getting an ultrasound.
That test sounded the initial alarm.
“After I got the results of that, I kind of spiraled a little bit because it was pretty big news,” she said.
She got a recommendation for a physician at AtlantiCare, Dr. John Lorenzetti, and when she met with him she realized he was part of a whole team that would guide her and treat her from start to finish. (See related story about the full-team approach to breast cancer care at AtlantiCare Cancer Care Institute.)
It was a long and difficult process from there, but one she said came with incredible support, both medically and through friends and family.
After the biopsy, her team knew the tumor was growing and could double in size every 25 days. She began chemotherapy treatments, which wrapped up Jan. 21, 2021.
In April 2021, she had a double mastectomy followed by 28 radiation treatments under her arm because of malignant breast cancer “tentacles.”
While she was being treated for breast cancer, doctors found a spot on her lung and she underwent five radiation treatments for that in August.
The other treatments since May of last year — the ones that finished Monday — were special chemotherapy to keep her HER2 proteins at bay. Pfander explained these treatments have come with milder side effects and were required because her cancer was caused by the proteins and was not hormonal.
“Because of that, after the chemo, the radiation and mastectomies, the chemotherapy I’m on now — Kadcyla — is to keep that protein at bay. It primarily attacks that. It’s not as strong as the first chemotherapy, I’m not losing hair, not as tired … but it’s still doing its job.”
Motivated to be an advocate
Pfander said she knows testing and screening isn’t all pleasant but that detecting breast cancer early is important, which she found out from personal experience.
“I really feel — here comes the emotion part — if I didn’t do this, I don’t know where I would be. And that’s the truth,” she said. “I went for that routine mammo because I didn’t want to get a dirty look from my primary care physician and because of that I found out.
“I was only like four months late for my mammo, and things proceeded really quickly after that. What if I didn’t go? What if I went to my doctor and said I don’t want to get my mammogram this year, that I’ll get it next year? What would have happened then?”
Although getting caught up in what might have been could have brought her down, she channeled that realization into action.
“When I think about … the road I could have gone down, I thought more people need to know this,” she said. “There is no one in my family that has breast cancer. This came from nowhere. … And I have siblings, all older than I am.”
Cancer isn’t kicking
this Jersey girl’s ass
Pfander began her advocacy early on when she started getting treatment.
Because people were beginning to find out through the grapevine about her diagnosis, she decided to make a definitive statement not only to inform everyone, but to let them know her mindset.
“My daughter made me that T-shirt, it was October, the Ocean City bridge was pink, and my son suggested we go underneath the bridge and take some shots and put those on Facebook and let everyone know that way. They knew it was coming from me and not from a message from someone else.”
And the message on the T-shirt? “Cancer won’t kick this “JERSEY GIRL’s ass.”
She used that motto and her support network to fight.
“I’m a Jersey girl, strong. And it’s just my path,” she said. “I knew from the beginning this isn’t going to get me down. I’m going to get through this. I’m going to get to the other end. I have an amazing husband, amazing children, great family and friends — a lot of support.”
She said she found out about a cancer walk, sent out a group text, “and I had 15 people at my front door within three days.”
The support “helps me stay strong and lets other people know you can have cancer and you can live with it and get through it. It’s not as much of a death sentence as it was when I was younger. When I was younger, you heard someone had cancer and it was, ‘Oh, boy.’ Now, with the way they’ve been doing the research, the new treatments and the team approach … it makes you feel like, ‘I’m doing this. I’m not going to let my doctors down or my family.’”
Pfander still has to have another surgery, “but I’m over the hump. The hump was the first round of chemo and then the radiation. They were the hard part to me, that and the double mastectomy, but I’m over it. I’m on the road to recovery.”
Along that road she has been speaking out and sending out cards to friends and families with the reminder to get screened.
James Wurzer, M.D., Ph.D., medical director of AtlantiCare’s Cancer Care Institute and of Radiation Oncology at AtlantiCare, was part of Pfander’s care team. Wurzer said Pfander not only was a good patient but also makes a great spokesperson for breast cancer screening.
“You can see what an incredible person she is. She is the poster child for getting served lemons and turning it into lemonade,” Wurzer said. “Here is someone who went through a really scary process — during COVID by the way, which compounds things — and turned this into a real positive, not just for her and her family, but she is really impacting our community. She is a real advocate for early detection and I think you couldn’t find a finer person.
“It’s a real honor to be involved with her care,” he said, noting her advocacy is important.
“When someone actually lived through that process, it means so much more to individuals in the community. That’s very valuable,” Wurzer said.
“In my field, oftentimes I will see people come in and they dwell on the negative, and believe me there is a lot of negatives in life, in general, and also when you get diagnosed with cancer. But it takes a very special person to turn this around and turn it into a positive and that’s what Jennifer has done,” Wurzer said. “The strength, the love that she has, is going to help so many other people.
“She is taking her personal problem and turning it into something beautiful and wonderful for our community to help those out there who might be scared to have a screening or scared to undergo therapy,” he said. “They can read her story and be inspired by what she personally has done. We want our community healthy and strong.”
In her New Year’s card, Pfander includes a message encouraging people to get screened and information about a paper put out by AtlantiCare and the American Cancer Society about recommendations for screening.
She knows it has been working.
“People come up to me. They say, ‘I’ve scheduled my mammogram.’ They want me to know that, ‘yes, I’m listening to you.’ And those are people I wouldn’t think would be listening. It makes me feel good that people are taking the message seriously.”
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff