‘Uncovering the
HopeWithin
’
Jan frst discovered the lump in
her breast after an unlikely meeting
with a stranger at the department of
motor vehicles.
A N A N G E L I N T E R V E N E S
“I call her my DMV angel,” Jan said.
“She sat down next to me and said
what a terrible day she was having
because she just found out she had
breast cancer—she toldme everything.
That promptedme todo a self-examat
home that night, and I found a lump.”
A trip to her doctor—Haulk
Tezcan, M.D., at Kootenai Cancer
Center—confrmed her suspicion
of breast cancer.
“After being diagnosed, two ques-
tions went through my head,” Jan
said. “One: Am I going to live? And
two: How am I going to deal with
losing all my hair?”
Dr. Tezcan said the cancer had
spread to the regional lymph
nodes in Jan’s breast but was not
metastatic—meaning it had not
spread to another part of the body,
such as the lungs or brain.
“The fact that it spread to the lymph
nodes means it is at a higher risk for
coming back,” Dr. Tezcan said. “We
won’t know for sure if Jan’s cancer
is fully gone for several more years.”
B R E A S T C A N C E R S U R V I V O R
J A N S T U R G E S D I S C O V E R E D T H E T R U E
M E A N I N G O F H O P E A N D L I F E
By Andrea Kalas-Nagel
IT’S EASY TO FEEL HOPELESS AFTER BEING
diagnosed with cancer. But that doesn’t mean
hope can’t be found. After being diagnosed with
breast cancer in 2009, Jan Sturges decided to look for that
hope within herself. She found more than she ever dreamed.
—Continued on page 14
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