Jennifer Lyon ignored the lump in her breast for a year, thinking it was just a side effect of her breast implant. Sadly, the former Survivor contestant has lost her battle with breast cancer.
Survivor: Palau contestant Jennifer Lyon, 37, lost her battle with breast cancer on January 19. When she first detected a lump in her breast, she thought it was simply a side effect of her breast implant.
“I felt something in my right breast that didn’t feel normal,” she told People magazine in 2005. “I thought it was probably scar tissue related to my breast implants. It was right along the ridge of the implant, so I let it go, and I let it go for a long time.”
Uninsured, Lyon didn’t consult a doctor about what she’d found – and she detected no other problems, which made her feel secure. “But a year later, I felt another lump, and then I felt something under my armpit,” she said.
This led to doctor visits, which led to an official diagnosis of stage III breast cancer in August 2005. In the same month, she underwent bilateral mastectomy, followed by breast reconstruction surgery a few weeks later. From there, Lyon was treated for chemotherapy for months.
For more than a year, thanks to the chemotherapy and additional drug therapy, Lyon appeared to be cancer-free. In 2008, however, she told People new problems had surfaced during testing.
“My blood levels, my blood sugar markers, started going up, and they did some scans and found [cancer] in my bone, the backbone, which is a very common place for it to metastasize,” she said. “It’s not all good news, unfortunately.”
Despite aggressive treatment and years of seemingly good health, Lyon finally succumbed, still young. One of her physicians, Dr. Kristi Pado, explained that her age was a telling factor in how dire the disease was.
“The younger you are when you are diagnosed with cancer, the more aggressive that cancer tends to be,” Pado told People in 2005. “And the longer life you have ahead of you, the more likely it is that a cancer can come back.”
Dr. Caroline Glicksman, a plastic surgeon and breast health expert, says breast augmentation patients should seek the opinion of a physician whenever they detect a lump or other unusual symptoms in their breasts, as well as plan for regular breast exams on a more frequent basis than women without implants.
RELATED STORIES:
Rebuilding the breast after cancer
Dr. Caroline Glicksman on breast health (VIDEO FEATURE)
