Kristi Funk, M.D. - Breasts

—BEVERLY “BAM” CRAWFORD, DD

Chancellor, Bible Enrichment Fellowship International Church

“We all have (or had) breasts, but who has ever told us how to care for them? What should you eat, not eat, do, not do—and what about all those risk factors over which you have no control? There are so many mixed messages about screening and even about what to do after you’ve been diagnosed. In Breasts: An Owner’s Manual , Dr. Funk helps you sift through all the confusion as though you’re having coffee with a dear friend—a friend who just happens to know a lot about breast health and illness! So grab a cup and turn the page.”

—LISA LING

TV Journalist

Producer and Host of This Is Life with Lisa Ling

To the women and girls all over this wonderful world who have—or had—breasts.

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Foreword by Sheryl Crow

Author’s Note

Introduction

PART 1:Breast Health Basics

Chapter 1: Breast Care ABCs

Chapter 2: Debunking Breast Cancer Myths

PART 2:Reducing Cancer Risk

Chapter 3: Eat This

Chapter 4: Don’t Eat That

Chapter 5: Beyond Food: What You Should Do

PART 3:Learn Your Personal Risk Factors and Control What You Can

Chapter 6: Uncontrollable Risk Factors: Do You Have Them?

Chapter 7: Medications and Operations to Consider

PART 4:Making Medical Choices and Living with Risk

Chapter 8: Breast Cancer Screening and Detection

Chapter 9: Cancer Happens: A Newly Diagnosed Starter Kit

Chapter 10: Now What? Life After Diagnosis and Treatment

Acknowledgments

Appendix: Acronyms and Abbreviations

Notes

Index

About the Publisher

Foreword

I’m embarrassed to say that when I first walked into my appointment with Dr. Kristi Funk, I wanted to turn around and leave. I thought, There’s no way this young woman whose beauty rivals Jessica Simpson’s can be the doctor I’ve heard so much about from my gynecologist and my internist as being someone who is widely known for her dedication and expertise to breast surgery. Boy, was I wrong! And furthermore, that appointment was one of the big blessings to come from my cancer experience. Not only was she then—and remains now—one of the finest breast surgeons a woman could have, but she also has been an inspiration and a friend to me ever since I walked into her office.

It was February 2006, and I was due to have my yearly mammogram. This one seemed to be more of a nuisance than ones in the past, because my engagement had just fallen apart five days before and I really didn’t want to be bothered with something I knew would be a waste of time. I was healthy and extremely fit, having spent the better part of the previous three years riding my bicycle up the sides of mountains—and I had no family history of breast cancer. I licked my wounds and went ahead and got it over with.

A few days after my mammogram, my gynecologist called me and suggested that I have two biopsies just to answer any questions that had shown up on the film, rather than waiting the recommended six months to view the areas again. She advised me to see Kristi Funk, who performed surgery a few days later.

I went through the painful process of a wire-localized open surgical biopsy and went home to resume the business of getting on with life. Four days later, I went in for my postoperative appointment with Dr. Funk. I will never forget the look on Kristi’s face when she told me that, although the odds of my having invasive cancer had been extremely minimal, mine was invasive, and I would need additional treatments. It was a blow of the first degree to someone who, until that point, had had complete and total control over every aspect of her life, or so I thought. And it seemed a blow to Kristi as well.

Now that I know Dr. Funk as I do, I believe each time she has had to deliver the outcome of a cancer screening that renders a malignant diagnosis, it has felt like a blow to her.

I got through my treatment uneventfully and went about rebuilding my life, personally and physically. Cancer was a game changer in the best and hardest of ways. I had to learn to put myself first, and I had to challenge what it means in a woman’s life to always nurture others but never to allow anyone to nurture her. I had to learn to say no and to be okay with not everyone liking or respecting me. I had to learn how symbolic breasts truly are and to accept that reality.

Accepting these truths seemed to be the lesson in the cancer experience for me—and from what I have heard from the countless women I have met in the most random of places who come up to me and share their cancer experiences, there is a lesson in it for everyone. Additionally, cancer changed my behavior; I had to learn about self-care and quality of living through nutrition and alleviating stress.

After some time passed, Kristi and her husband, Andy, and I met about their dream of opening a place that offered a “one-stop shop” where breast cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment happened seamlessly and comfortably under one roof. I was all in. Their dream would eventually become Pink Lotus, including the free care they provide to underserved women via the Pink Lotus Foundation. The Pink Lotus Breast Center would offer the first contrast-enhanced digital mammograms in North America, combining Western medicine with complementary and alternative medicine, nutrition, psychology, physical therapy, genetics, and innovative technologies — and offering women holistic, whole-body view of health and wellness.

Over the years, I have learned so much about how to live a healthier life through diet and exercise and meditation. I wince every time I hear from someone I know or someone who is distantly connected that they’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer or cancer in general. The 1 out of 8 statistic seems to hold on, but we are learning more about prevention, and until there is a cure . . . well, early detection is a great help, but prevention is the greatest hope for us all.

Over a decade later, I remain grateful to Kristi for continuing to be driven to learn more about how to outsmart this insidious disease. Whether you live with or without breasts, there is so much to know and so many things one can do. Navigating it all can become confusing, especially with all the contradictory advice out there. Dr. Funk’s book is a gift to women everywhere looking for answers to breast issues and to health in general. Kristi shares what she learns in the hopes that eventually she will be out of a job as a breast cancer surgeon!

—Sheryl Crow

Author’s Note

My mom was thirty-six years old and had five children under the age of fourteen (I was two) in December 1971. She was in peak fitness as a competitive A-level tennis player who swam daily when she suffered a stroke and inexplicably fell into a coma that lasted three weeks. The UCLA doctors told my father on multiple occasions not to leave for home that night, for she would surely die by morning. A priest administered the sacrament of last rites, which I believe made heaven take notice: Oh heck no, we aren’t ready for that ornery MaryAnn; give her another fifty-plus . So she woke up! (If you ever meet me—and I hope you do—ask me how she woke up.) My mom remained in rehab for a year before returning home, relearning how to speak and how to walk, since she would never move her right side again (hemiparesis). All of my parents’ “friends” disappeared and my dad downsized the house, but his love for her never diminished; in fact, it grew. To this day, in their late eighties, he defends her fiercely and assists her tenderly. How could you not cherish a warrior who stared down death and won—without speaking a word?