[00:00:00] Adam Walker: From Susan G Komen, This is Real Pink, a podcast exploring real stories, struggles, and triumphs related to breast cancer. We’re taking the conversation from the doctor’s office to your living room.
On today’s show, we’re joined by two sisters who are unfortunately no strangers to breast cancer. Their biological mother passed away from metastatic breast cancer when she was 52. While they were aware that their mother’s diagnosis put them at a higher risk, it still came as a shock when Tami Salawater was diagnosed at age 50.
Two weeks later, Her sister, Jamie Boettcher, received her own breast cancer diagnosis. Both women were diagnosed at an early stage, but with different types of cancer, and they each faced unique challenges and side effects as they navigated their treatment. Jamie and Tami are here today to share their story of facing breast cancer together as a family and the personalized care that each of them received.
Jamie and Tami, welcome to the show.
[00:01:01] Jamie Boettcher: Hello.
[00:01:06] Adam Walker: Yeah, thank you for joining us. You’ve got just such a unique story. I’ve talked to a lot of guests that have cancer in the family, but not certainly not cancer, this close together among siblings. And want to talk about that.
Let’s start off telling our listeners about your family history. And give us an overview of how each of you were diagnosed.
[00:01:30] Jamie Boettcher: Well, you mentioned a little bit of our family history in the intro. Our biological mother, died of metastatic breast cancer. She was originally, Tami, was she 46 when she was originally diagnosed with the first round?
[00:01:44] Tami Salawater: I think she was 44 when she had it the first time and then she was diagnosed the second time at 50. And that’s, unfortunately when it metastasized and we lost her to that. We also have a, cousin, on our dad’s side that died of breast cancer very young. And actually we just found out recently one of our aunts, also diagnosed.
But at the time, we really just, we knew our mother had it and, that, statistically we’re at higher risk. But honestly, I don’t know that I ever really, in my heart
believed that, I knew it logically, but I never viewed myself really as somebody at a higher risk. I don’t know if that makes sense.
[00:02:29] Adam Walker: Yeah. How did each of you come to be diagnosed as well?
[00:02:34] Tami Salawater: Yeah, so I, was obviously we were both diagnosed, last year in 2023. So I had a normal mammogram in April of 2023, didn’t show any abnormalities. And then in August of 2023, I noticed a lump myself. and I had, normal annual mammograms since about 36.
So I started them a little bit earlier because of our mom’s history. I’ve been aware that I was at risk, but didn’t really think I’d get breast cancer. Like Jamie said, I knew I was at risk, but I didn’t really think I was actually going to get breast cancer. But at any rate, so I had a normal mammogram in April of 2023.
In August, noticed a lump. And I just blew it off. I was like that it can’t be breast cancer. I just had a mammogram and it was completely normal. So I let it go for about three weeks. And then finally texted my doctor because he’s a friend of ours. And I was like, Hey, I have this lump, it’s superficial, like I can feel it.
Do you think you could just maybe order an ultrasound and we just go, just take a look at it, just see what it is? And he was like, well, yeah, definitely. You should do that. So then I ended up having the ultrasound and then the diagnostic mammogram, which then of course led down the road of, having to have the biopsy and all of that.
But, yeah, it just, I really was in denial that it even could possibly be breast cancer because I was just like in my brain, I was like, there’s no way because I had a normal mammogram. There’s no way from April to August, I could develop a lump that I could actually feel on the surface, just didn’t think it was possible.
Even being a nurse, I just didn’t think it was possible. So I just, just seems so surreal even looking back on it now.
[00:04:43] Adam Walker: And Tami, I want to ask you one more question about that. And then Jamie, I do want to come back to your diagnosis as well. So Tami, you’re diagnosed, your family history, what were the emotions like for you in that moment?
Especially, talking to Jamie about it?
[00:05:03] Tami Salawater: Scared, you go through list this like rollercoaster of emotion from I’m going to, I’m going to deal with this head on. I’m going to, I’m not scared. I’m not worried. There’s nothing to worry about. Everything’s going to be fine. And then the next day you’re like, oh my gosh, this keeps going.
And then the next day you’re like, nope, everything’s going to be fine. it’s, just a rollercoaster of emotion. And then having, we call, I call my dad and talk to him about it and then we have two sisters. We have an older sister, Jamie and I do. Calling my older sister and telling her like, Hey, I think I might have breast cancer.
I think I told Jamie when I, before I was diagnosed, like I thought it could be breast cancer. And then some people like my older sister, I didn’t tell her until after I knew for sure that’s what it was.
[00:06:03] Adam Walker: So, Jamie, let’s talk about your story for a minute. Tell us how are you diagnosed.
And then, how did you process that? Going from your sister’s diagnosis and letting you know to now yours, and you’ve got to call her and talk through that, tell me about that.
[00:06:19] Jamie Boettcher: Yeah. I think when Tami first told me, I could hear that she was worried, but she, and like looking back, I can hear that, balance of, she was worried, but you’re like, no, I’m sure it’s going to be fine.
And so that’s what I thought too. And then even when she called me to say yes, it is, this breast cancer, was like, she’s young, she’s strong, she’s, it’s going to be fine. And so it’s just like funny looking back, like now that I’ve gone through it and one of the things you lose with cancer is that ability to ever say it’s probably nothing.
Like it just, you it’s almost like a, you lose this innocence about your health. I don’t know. But anyway, so she, she told me, so I thought, oh man, I’m about six months late for my own mammogram, like Tami, I’ve been getting them annually since my mid thirties, and I wasn’t even really thinking about it.
So I just scheduled it and went in, never thinking that anything weird was going to come of it. And I remember it was on a Friday that I had the mammogram, and I was actually talking to Tami. I called her just to chat while I was shopping, and I missed a call from the clinic. And I was like, that’s, I even said to Tami, that’s weird.
They’re trying to call me. I don’t, I’m like, I don’t know, maybe I left something there. And so I leave stuff everywhere. Couldn’t call them back by the time we were done because it was Friday afternoon. So the whole weekend I was like, Huh, but I still didn’t worry. And that ended up going in for the diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound that Tuesday.
I talked to them Monday. They said, we need you to come back in. And I went in and I had that and then the following day I had the biopsy. So it was like a Wednesday and then I had to wait for the results like over the weekend. But I knew.
[00:08:14] Tami Salawater: Remember on that Friday when you had your mammogram and then you missed that call and then your mammogram results populated in your, my chart, remember that?
[00:08:26] Jamie Boettcher: And then I sent them to you-
[00:08:28] Tami Salawater: You sent a copy of your mammogram results to me. And I was like, instantly my heart just broke. I was just, I might get teary eyed, but I was just like, this, isn’t going to be a good outcome. And I told my husband, I said, Jamie had her mammogram today, she missed a call from the clinic, I’m reading her results and I think she has breast cancer too.
And my husband was like, there is no way. And I was like, I’m telling ya, I think she has breast cancer too. And what, the odds of it were just just all seemed so surreal now. Yeah, I had no idea. I had no lumps, nothing. And they, it was just timing. It ended up being a blessing in disguise because my cancer was caught so early that they said if I had gone in for my normal mammogram at that time, it wouldn’t probably have shown up, but on the flip side, if I had waited another six months, it could have been a very, different story.
And she said, based on where my tumor was, I very likely would never have felt it until it was far too late. And so that man, then the message I tell all of my female friends, like you cannot count on that you’re going to feel alone. You just can’t, right?
[00:09:57] Adam Walker: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not certainly not guaranteed. Yeah.
So, that’s a wild couple of weeks for you both, for your family. Tell us about that. What was it like settling with that diagnosis together, starting to deal with this together?
[00:10:21] Tami Salawater: It, was, interesting in the fact that I felt, I found comfort in it because I had her and Jamie and I are close anyways.
And so we sometimes deal with stressful things in sarcastic sorts of ways, and probably not the same way other people would deal with it. So we had each other, to do that. Because they all have things that you would never say to someone else. And we understood it and, we understood where, each other were coming from, and we understood that some day is.
We were having great days and feeling super strong and other days we weren’t, and obviously other women feel the same thing and other women, I hope that other women have support too. Not somebody like their sister who has breast cancer, but I hope that other women look for support who understand what comforts them and having Jamie comforted me. Unfortunately she had to have, she had breast cancer too. Yeah.
[00:11:33] Adam Walker: Yeah. Yeah. So, I understand you have, you both have breast cancer, but it’s different types of breast cancer, different types of treatment. And, you both advocated for yourself throughout the challenges and throughout the process.
So I want to start with you, Tami. What did your treatment plan look like, and what sort of side effects have you had to work through?
[00:11:55] Tami Salawater: So I had, the HERS 2 positive breast cancer. So I had, 12 weeks of chemo with the Herceptin. And then I had four weeks of radiation and a lumpectomy.
And then I also had nine months of just Herceptin treatment that I just finished. December 6th was my last Herceptin treatment. And hopefully that will keep that HERS2 protein for my body to recognize that HERS2 protein and that breast cancer doesn’t come back. Did have a scare where I had another lump about four weeks ago where they did another diagnostic mammogram and another ultrasound and another biopsy.
And I was like, it’s so nerve wracking. It’s like Jamie said, your baseline health has completely changed now. My baseline health is not like it was a year and a half ago. Now everything they suspect it to be cancer until they rule it out, where before, you doctors didn’t think that way.
Now, anything you say, they right away, they’re going to rule out cancer before they try to rule anything else out. But, so it’s been a long year and a half-ish of
treatment. I had a lot of nausea, from the, from the Herceptin, I believe is what it was from, a lot of fatigue from the Herceptin.
[00:13:32] Jamie Boettcher: Well, and your steroid dose was a little off at first, wasn’t it? Your steroid?
[00:13:36] Tami Salawater: Yeah, my steroid dosing was off. you have to be really aware because mistakes are made and, it’s certainly nobody’s fault. But when I first started my chemo, they were giving me, they give you oral steroids to take before your chemo and then they give you steroids while you’re getting your chemo through your IV.
And one day was just questioned it. I was like, why am I taking these oral steroids? And I brought them with me to the cancer, to the infusion center. And I brought them, I was like, yeah, like, why am I taking, this is a lot of steroids. Like, why am I taking all of these? I can’t sleep.
I, and the nurse is who ordered those? And I was like, you guys, like the doctor did. And then she was like, those should have been stopped. Like those two were like, for the first dose of chemo to make sure you didn’t have a reaction. And if you didn’t have a reaction, then you didn’t need to continue them.
And I was like. Well, that’s not no wonder why I haven’t been sleeping. And then, they, when the nurses talk to you every day, every time before your chemo, they ask you side effects, you’re having trouble sleeping, are you having pain in your feet? Are you having numbness? Are you having tingling?
And you really have to answer those questions honestly, because I think a lot of people will just be like, no, I’m doing fine. I feel fine. this is going okay. But if you’re honest with your symptoms, they can help you with those symptoms. They can mitigate some of those symptoms. and then, the chemo isn’t as bad.
Like I remember when our mother was going through chemo, how awful it was for her. And I look back and I think, I don’t know if she didn’t advocate for herself or if cancer treatment has just changed so much that the chemo is just better.
[00:15:32] Adam Walker: Well, the chemo is better. I can tell you that from a lot of guest interviews.
So for sure that, yeah. Yeah.
[00:15:38] Tami Salawater: Yeah. You really do, you have to really speak up. If you have questions, you have to ask them. If you, have, if you want a second opinion, get that second opinion. If you have questions on medications, bring them all with you to the clinic and say, like I did, and I’m a nurse.
I’m like, like I was adding up the, like the milligrams of steroids. And I was like, this doesn’t seem right. This doesn’t seem right at all. And as a matter of fact, there was another incident with medication when they were refilling stuff. I went to pick up medications from the pharmacy and I looked at the medication and I said, what is this medication?
This was just like three months ago. The pharmacist said, well, that’s a, hormone treatment. And I said, for what? And she’s well, your, the oncology office called it in and I said, Why? Well, it’s for the hormone based cancer. I said, I don’t have the hormone based cancer. And I’m not ER, PR positive.
And she was like, well, do you want me to just, the pharmacist is do you want me to just take the medication back? And I was like, no, give me the bottle because I’m going to take it with me to my next appointment. I know I’m not supposed to be on it. And I didn’t just suddenly, my cancer didn’t just suddenly change.
12 months into my diagnosis that now I need this medication, but somewhere along the line, I’m assuming a nurse mistakenly sent that prescription in, but you have to make sure that you’re advocating for yourself and that you’re, questioning things if you have concerns or if something doesn’t look right.
I trust my doctors. I, trust my nurses, but things happen and-
[00:17:22] Adam Walker: Yeah. For sure.
[00:17:23] Jamie Boettcher: You have to be an active participant.
[00:17:26] Adam Walker: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. Yeah.
[00:17:28] Tami Salawater: Yeah. I’ve said that to patients in my own job, I expect you to be an active participant in your healthcare, and I expected of myself too, made me happy.
[00:17:38] Adam Walker: That’s right. That’s great. So Jamie, tell us about your treatment plan. What did you deal with any side effects that you had to overcome and deal with?
[00:17:47] Jamie Boettcher: yeah, I did. I had, so my cancer was the triple negative. So my treatment plan was absolutely different than my sister. I had, 12 weeks of chemo.
Well, first I guess back up, I had a lumpectomy and I, so this is a difference in where for mine, I had the lumpectomy and they did immediate reconstruction in the same surgery, whereas with Tami, they didn’t and I don’t know if that had to do with, the size of the tumors and like how much they were going to be removing, but they did that immediate reconstruction.
And I actually participated in a clinical trial, that I had read about because I, armed myself with information and so I had been reading and reading, learning everything that I could, and I came across the study that was being done at that hospital with my surgeon and so I asked her about it.
And she said, yeah, you can do this. And so what it was, they were looking at, like fluorescence, using fluorescence, lighting during surgery. So essentially before surgery, I drank, this, I took this drug that I drank. And then the idea is that then, when they go in, they will shine a handheld blue light device over the tumor bed.
If Dr. Sarimba hears this, she probably is going to laugh at my description of it, but this is my blatant description of what they did. They hold the light over it, and the theory was that cancer cells, the way that they process this drug, is they will light up under this handheld blue light and the surgeon can see in theory right away whether they got everything and the idea is to reduce the number of times that you have to have a secondary surgery.
And unfortunately for me, nothing showed up on the, bioluminescence, but my margins weren’t clear. So they found them, the, pre cancer, the DCIS, they call it before, right on the edge of the sample.
So I had to actually go in for a second surgery. And he followed by a wound that wouldn’t heal that delayed things a lot. And, this is where I had, I had to learn to be a little bit patient, but also I really pushed for things to move as quickly and as aggressively as they could.
My husband and I went to the wound clinic, and they wanted to start with conservative treatment, which I totally get and I said, no, thank you. I would really like you to let’s just go to whatever the thing is that I’m probably going to have to do in a month because my life is on the line here and every day that we wait to start chemo.
It’s a problem for me. and so they agreed, to just skip over all that interim stuff. and, they said, there’s a chance your insurance might not cover it if we skip X, Y, and Z step. And I said, I understand. And I will deal with that. But do that. So anyway, so I had that and then I had the 12 weeks of chemo followed by 20 sessions of radiation.
So yeah, the chemo, like Tami said, was not as, it wasn’t as bad as I expected, because I think a lot of people in your head, you’re picturing the chemo of the past where people are really sick all the time and you’re losing tons of weight. And, Because we talked very openly about that, they did.
They gave me anti nausea medications. One of them didn’t work really very well. And so she gave me a different option right away. I broke out in rash, almost like acne on my scalp, which is, it’s embarrassing and like traumatic enough, especially as a woman. But I imagine for men too, when you lose your hair and and then not only did I not have any hair, but I had these disgusting, painful sores on my head.
And I hesitated to say anything because I’m like, maybe, I don’t know, I don’t want to be vain. You’re supposed to rock the bald head and, be proud of it. And I was not feeling proud of that. So I called and seemed immediately they gave me, an antibiotic and within a week it had cleared up. Don’t be afraid to bring things up. Maybe, there isn’t anything. The reality is you’re poisoning your body in order to save your life. But, and so there are going to be some negative side effects, but there are a lot of things that they can do to manage it.
[00:22:27] Adam Walker: Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. Both of you advocating for yourselves is so important.
We talk about that on the show all the time. So glad to hear that you did that. So shifting gears a bit. I understand you both formed a team for your local More Than Pink walk. So tell me about that experience and why you chose to do that.
[00:22:49] Tami Salawater: Yeah, we were the survivor sisters. That’s what we call it.
[00:22:52] Adam Walker: I love it. I love it. Okay, great.
[00:22:55] Jamie Boettcher: I don’t know. For me I don’t know about you, Tami, it just felt like something we needed to do like we had done it years past, after we lost our biological mother, but then we just stopped after a few years and, we would talk about it, but it just felt like we needed something to come together as a family.
And at least for me was to make something positive out of it. There’s, we try to be very like, we’re just a very realistic kind of family. You dust off your knees and we’re going to fight this and don’t spend a lot of time feeling sorry for ourselves. Although there is some of that and that’s okay.
Women should know that it’s okay to be upset and feel sad and angry at times. But this just felt like a way for us to, again, make a positive impact. Our lives might be saved or might have already been saved by research that was done. And that takes funding.
[00:23:56] Adam Walker: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Love that. Tami, what are your, thoughts on your experience there?
[00:24:01] Tami Salawater: Yeah, like Jamie said, we had done, the breast cancer walk numerous times, in support of breast cancer survivors, never as a survivor ourselves, and in, like Jamie said, I think we needed that. We needed, our, dad came, our stepmom came, our children came, our friends came.
We put together a big team and then unfortunately there was thunder and lightning and it got rained out. So we didn’t actually get to walk, but we took the party to Jamie’s and, we had still had a good time, but like we needed that support to say, Hey, we did this, we are strong and, and we couldn’t have done it without the support of each other and the support of our kids and our husbands and our parents and our friends.
Because you lean on all of those people so much. It was almost a thank you to them too, just for being with us through all of this. Yeah, it was, a fun, that was, it ended up being a fun day, but we were all down there in Wisconsin here, it’s on the lake front, on Lake Michigan.
And, it was like, everything was all decked out ready for, the big walk in the party and it was just lightning, like you wouldn’t believe. And so eventually they had to call it, but we had, because of the amount that we fundraised, we were, we had a tent area and so we had gotten all of this decorations and things to decorate our team tent, and we just packed that up. We texted everybody that was, in route and, said, turn, go to Jamie. So when we got to my house, we hung up all the decorations and we had all the snacks and things. And, it, just, it ended up being a lot of fun. We took a lot of pictures and, yeah, so we made the most of it.
[00:25:56] Adam Walker: Love that. I love that. Well, ladies, I really appreciate you sharing your stories and helping to urge women to get screened early and to advocate for personalized care. It’s so important. You’re such greatexamples of that and I really just appreciate you coming on the show with us today. Do you have any final words for our listeners that you’d each like to share?
[00:26:19] Jamie Boettcher: I think you know. Yes, it starts with getting your mammograms. Frankly, it’s whatever test your doctor is ordering for you based on your age and your risk factors, do it. Colonoscopy, mammogram, whatever it is, go and do it. We had, we told our brother, he’s between us in age and you need to go get one because he was late 40s and I’m 40.
He must be 49 and he had not had his colonoscopy yet. And so as a result of our diagnoses, he actually went and got it and he had precancerous polyps removed. So it’s whatever your thing is, go do that. So that’s like my first advice. Second one is, I think if you find yourself in the situation where unfortunately you have cancer, learn as much as you can.
Be an active participant with your doctors. Ask questions until you’re confident that you understand what’s happening and why. And don’t be afraid to push for better, more aggressive care. And I don’t want to imply my doctors were fantastic, right? But it was very much a partnership. And then be comfortable and unknow.
I don’t, I think we don’t talk enough about the mental health aspect of it. Where, even survivors who are depicted as the smiling, happy, I’m such a strong group and there is a real struggle sometimes after and so I want women to know that it’s okay to feel angry. It’s okay to feel scared. But don’t let that lose your don’t let that kill your fight, you rise above that. It’s okay to feel all those feelings.
[00:28:03] Tami Salawater: Yeah, I mean I kind of have to echo what Jamie said, preventative health care is so important because that’s what it’s there for is to prevent things. It’s to catch things early. some people are like mammograms don’t catch a lot of the breast cancers. The majority of breast cancers aren’t first noticed on a mammogram.
Preventative screenings are important in the mental health aspect of it, is real important. I do think that isn’t mentioned a lot during your treatment. It’s not mentioned a lot, even from your oncologist, but it certainly is a big component. So if a person, a man or woman going through any type of cancer is experiencing, this wave of emotion, make sure you’re talking to your doctor about it because it is stressful. It’s emotionally stressful. It’s financially stressful. If you need to talk to somebody regarding your mental health or you’re going through cancer treatment, there’s certainly no shame in that.
[00:29:13] Adam Walker: That’s right. Yeah, it’s great. It’s great advice. It’s great advice. Well, Jamie, Tami, so nice to get to talk to you today and great to hear your stories. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today.
[00:29:23] Tami Salawater: Thank you.
[00:29:25] Jamie Boettcher: Thanks for having us.
[00:29:31] Adam Walker: Thanks for listening to Real Pink, a weekly podcast by Susan G. Komen. For more episodes, visit realpink.komen.org. And for more on breast cancer, visit komen.org. Make sure to check out @SusanGkomen on social media. I’m your host, Adam. You can find me on Twitter @AJWalker or on my blog, adamjwalker.com.