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Now that she has survived breast cancer, Carrie Spinos of Richland Township wants to experience life more.
After her last chemotherapy treatment Feb. 2 with Dr. Rashid Awan at Windber Medical Center, Spinos took several vacations to get away from it all.
She took a cruise to Mexico with her sister and went on two other vacations with her family.
Spinos also worked to can and freeze her own vegetables in an effort to better her health.
“I’ve always been active, but I’ve made more of an effort to exercise more,” Spinos said. “I went on a
22-mile bike ride from Confluence to Ohiopyle. That’s something I wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t gotten sick.”
Spinos, who works as a registered nurse for Windber Medical Center’s Home Care services, found a lump on her breast while in the shower last fall – at age 37.
“I called Dr. (Pradeep) Kulkarni that day and had an ultrasound,” Spinos said. “I had a biopsy the next day and found out I had breast cancer Sept. 20, 2010.”
Spinos thought she was young to have the disease and that this was a rare occurrence, but soon found out neither point was true.
“It seems that more women in their early 30s are being diagnosed, probably because of early detection,” Spinos said.
“I wasn’t worried when I found the lump because there is no history in my family,” she said.
Spinos had a lumpectomy, but didn’t go with traditional radiation.
She was eligible for brackytherapy with a SAVI device at Indiana Regional Medical Center, the closest facility using the new technology.
Spinos explained that the SAVI device looks something like an egg beater and is used directly on the area where a tumor has been.
Last October, she had to go in for therapy twice a day for five days and wear the device for two weeks.
“It was uncomfortable and hard to sleep,” Spinos said. “I was exhausted from the radiation.
“Typical radiation is seven or eight weeks. My tumor was close to the skin, so traditional radiation would have burned me,” she said.
Spinos also had to have chemotherapy.
With surgery and radiation, she missed only 31/2 weeks of work.
Working in home health, Spinos travels the area encompassing the Forest Hills School District, fixing medical problems that can range from simple to serious.
“I do a lot of wound treatment and IV antibiotics,” Spinos said. “We get doctors’ referrals from Conemaugh and Pittsburgh. Some get transferred to hospice. To be eligible for home health, you have to be homebound for a short time because you can’t get out of the house.”
She has worked in home health about three years.
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