Teresa Boulet woke up one morning in the fall of 2017 and felt a strange lump in her upper right breast. As a registered nurse with decades of experience at UTMB, she knew she needed to have it checked out, but she always stayed current with her annual exams, and her mammogram had already been scheduled. Afterwards, she went to her primary care provider, who had her mammogram results.
“I had a feeling, so I wasn’t really surprised,” Boulet said. “My doctor had ‘that look’ on her face and sent me to get an ultrasound. After that, I had a biopsy, and on December 8, I found out I had stage three HER2+ breast cancer in my right breast.”
She said she felt numb for a while after learning her diagnosis but always had faith that everything would turn out well. “It’s a very fast-moving cancer,” she said.
Prior to her first chemo treatment in January, she had noticed her breast felt swollen and sore. “I had 17 chemo treatments throughout that whole year, and after the first dose, I could see my breast was going back to normal. The swelling and the lump went away,” she said. “I told the doctor I couldn’t feel the lump anymore, and after he examined me, he couldn’t feel it either.”
Despite the quick reaction to the chemo, Boulet continued with treatments. After an appointment with Medical Director of Breast Cancer Services Dr. Colleen Silva, she learned about her options and chose to have a mastectomy.
“I was afraid the cancer could come back,” she said. “I just didn’t want to put myself through that, and I felt comfortable with having that done.”
What followed was months of chemo, radiation, scans, ultrasounds, and endless doctor’s appointments. Her hair did fall out, but she said she tolerated most of the treatments fairly well.
“I always kept the faith, I trusted my physicians, I had family support, and I always had a positive mindset that everything would be all right,” she continued. “Then, two weeks after my bell-ringing from radiation therapy, I went to see my radiation oncologist, and he could see I wasn’t my usual happy-go-lucky self. I was having vertigo, and I wasn’t walking straight. I would lean to the left or the right, and I was sometimes nauseous.”
Her doctor sent her for an MRI, which revealed a lesion on her brain. She was sent immediately to the emergency room at UTMB, where a neurology team was waiting for her.
“That’s the day I became a neuro patient,” she said. “They took me to the neuro ICU, and I met my neurologist, Dr. Rishi Lall, and his team. They were the best. I can’t even put into words how good they were. Dr. Lall explained everything to me and said they were just going to go into my head and take the lesion out.”
Boulet praises her medical team and God that everything went successfully. She underwent breast reconstruction surgery in 2018 and continues to enjoy good health today.
“I feel that God had a purpose for me to go through all that,” she said. “My purpose now is to share this with others and ease them through their process. Cancer is not a death sentence. You have to put yourself in a certain state of mind and keep the negative vibes away. I’m healthy, my checkups are coming back well.”
She said she feels fine, and she continues to do what’s best for her.
“What happened changed so much in me. I never thought I would be on the other side because I was always the nurse who was taking care of patients, but I see what people are going through and it was a transformation for me,” she said. “I give all the glory to God, and I kept all my faith and trust."