Emmons, who turned 50 this month, was hired to be the Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities superintendent on May 1, some three years after she left the agency to run the University of Cincinnati’s Intellectual and Developmental Disability Education Center. And just more than three years after she began her cancer journey during the pandemic.
After finding a lump in her right breast in March 2021, Emmons was advised to get a genetic test. That test happened to be the same day when she turned in her notice to leave the county agency for a new job at the University of Cincinnati. Weeks later, when the results came back, she was told to see a specialist because she had the lump and had what’s called a BRCA 2 mutation, an inherited gene that predisposes a person for breast cancer.
She couldn’t get in until Sept. 9, 2021.
Emmons thought the appointment would be somewhat routine. Check the lump, have an ultrasound and discuss mitigation. However, there was nothing routine about that early-morning visit. Instead of discussing mitigation, the doctor performed a biopsy to remove tissue for testing.
“I had about five minutes of preparation time,” Emmons said. While the doctor wouldn’t be able to tell her she had cancer until the test results came back the next day, the weight of what was happening was heavy. Not only did she have the genetic mutation, but there was a family history of breast cancer. “She knew I had cancer, and she as much as told me, but couldn’t tell me (until the next day).”
The doctor took a paper towel from an in-room dispenser, wrote her personal cellphone on it, and told Emmons they were going to talk after 4 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 10 and have a telehealth appointment first thing on Saturday morning, Sept. 11.
“At that moment, there was definitely shock and a lot of emotion at that moment of having that biopsy,” she said. “I felt extremely connected with every other woman who had ever been through this, and specifically to my aunt and my grandmother.”
After the appointment, Emmons sat in her car and cried.
Twenty minutes later, she went to work.
Hundreds of thousands of women hear the same diagnosis every year, and tens of thousands of women die every year. Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed among women in the country, according to the American Cancer Society, and only lung cancer kills more women among cancers. Men who have a family history can also get breast cancer, too, though it’s more rare. fewer than 3,000 men will be diagnosed, and several hundred will die from the disease.
Kettering Health Hamilton diagnostic radiologist Dr. Linda Reilman encourages women to have regular screening mammograms so medical professionals can catch cancer in its earliest stages when survival rates are much better.
“Cancer happens, but mammography can pick up cancer before a patient detects any signs or symptoms,” she said. “And when it is detected that early, women often can go on to live their lives normally after treatment.”
Between mammography appointments, a breast self-exam helps maintain breast health, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Most lumps and abnormalities aren’t cancer, but women should share that information with their physician, which was what happened in Emmons’ case.
After her diagnosis, Emmons then went down a long, aggressive path of treatments and surgeries. And from diagnosis to completion on June 10, 2022, she underwent a dozen rounds of chemotherapy and 29 radiation treatments in nine months to the day.
She also worked during those nine months, only taking time off as needed for recovery time.
Emmons celebrates many dates during what she called the longest nine months of her life, but March 15, 2022, she calls her re-birthday. That day she had a double mastectomy to remove the cancerous tissues. Eight days later, she had a hysterectomy to prevent the chance of cancer cells from developing in other places, like ovarian or uterine. Though it was rough and difficult, Emmons said her cancer journey “is just part of my story,” and she saw it “as a gift to me, as hard as it was.”
“Everybody should be so lucky to have the opportunity for people to tell you how much they appreciate you and how important you are to them,” Emmons, who was at the University of Cincinnati’s IMAPCT Innovation director during her treatment and recovery. “And I was working with so many people with significant autism, a lot of them non-speaking. There was no way I could feel sorry for myself.”
One of those people she worked with at U.C.’s IMPACT Innovation was Kobe, an autistic client who came up to her after her first round of chemotherapy. Emmons had been out a full week. She was bald and “really, really, really sick.”
“I did not feel good and I looked worse,” she said, but Kobe missed his friend, and when he saw Emmons, ran to hug her. What Kobe told Emmons put things into perspective. He looked her in the eyes and said, “You look so pretty today.”
“I know this is so cheesy, but it was like seeing the face of God. I was like, ‘Okay, God, I see you,’” Emmons said. “I know I do not look pretty today, but he sees me as pretty because of that relationship that we had. It was really hard to be sad. It was really hard to feel sorry for myself when I’m seeing people doing all this hard work just to get on a bus and ride downtown. For me to be crying about that I had no hair ― no, not going to do it.”
When she was diagnosed with BRCA 2 and then received the cancer diagnosis, most of her family was tested. A cousin, Jennifer Rowe, found out she had the same genetic mutation, and had a prophylactic mastectomy and hysterectomy a month before Emmons’ surgeries. And Emmons’ experience is saving her daughter’s life as she also has the mutation.
“The whole thing to me felt sort of serendipitous, even though I had to go though all that, I feel like I potentially saved my daughter’s life, and definitely saved my cousin’s life, because it’s not if but when,” Emmons said. Her daughter, Katie Fogle, plans to have a prophylactic mastectomy and hysterectomy.
Emmons has not been shy about telling her story about navigating cancer. She said she felt obligated.
“I’m very thankful I was very responsive after finding a lump,” she said. “I didn’t rely just on the results of a mammogram because I had a clear mammogram a month before I found the lump.”
Through telling her story, she’s uncovered other stories of women who had the same or similar experiences, as her cousin and daughter. They’re owning the stories and not ashamed.
“It’s part of who we are,” she said. “I would love to see a Barbie breast cancer survivor because there should be no shame in this. For women, the support group we are to each other, I can’t say enough about that. I do think the community of women of supporting each other is an important aspect about talking about our health. I don’t know why we should be ashamed to talk about it.”
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