Featured Image Credit: SWNS
Topics: Cancer, Breast cancer, Health, Dogs, Good News
Emily Brown
A 36-year-old woman has admitted she 'may not have survived' to this day if it weren't for her dog, Cato, alerting her to a key symptom of breast cancer that led to a diagnosis.
Chase Johnson shares her Labrador and retriever mix with her husband, Ben Byrn, 48, and the couple already knew that Cato was a pretty special dog.
The pooch had previously alerted Ben to the fact that something was wrong with his own health when the dog started acting anxiously around him and following him around, and Ben went on to be diagnosed with colon cancer.
Fast forward to January 2021, and Cato started acting anxious again.
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Chase, who's an attorney from North Carolina, explained: "Cato is a pretty calm dog; he never gets anxious and is always pretty chill.
"A couple of weeks before I found the lump, he followed me around the house, would pace the room, whimpering and became really anxious."
"We were trying to figure out what was going on, until he got so worked up one day and poked his nose to my breast," Chase continued.
When Cato pushed his nose into Chase's breast a second time, she noticed the move actually caused her pain.
"He did it a second time, which hurt; that is when I started searching and found the lump," Chase said. "If he had not done that, I would not have found it."
The action prompted Chase to go to her doctor, as she recalled: "I told them that I had found a lump, but they told me I was too young for cancer.
"They said that cancer doesn't hurt, so I probably had a benign cyst that would be nothing to worry about and come back in May."
However, Chase trusted her dog and went to get a second opinion.
She contacted a physician associate at Duke University Hospital, but that physician also originally thought she was too young for cancer.
"Again, I was not satisfied with that answer," Chase said. "I told her how Cato had alerted my husband to the fact that he had cancer, so she agreed to send me for a mammogram."
After sitting through multiple appointments, Chase was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer; an aggressive type of the disease.
Thanks to her action, Chase was able to quickly undergo chemotherapy, radiotherapy, a lumpectomy and lymph node removal, which were successful. Now, Chase currently has no sign of cancer - though if she'd waited any longer, it might have been a different story.
Chase explained: "After my diagnosis, I met with my oncologist, she said if I had waited till May, that we would be having a very different conversation, and I may not have survived."
"If I didn't have Ceto, and if I didn't have that past experience with my husband, I might not be here.
"You have to be your own advocate, I was told by experts that I was too young and cancer didn't hurt - then I received this diagnosis."
Following her experience, Chase is now taking part in a Cleveland Clinic clinical trial for a preventive breast cancer vaccine.
G. Thomas Budd, MD, principal investigator of the study, said: “It’s a hopeful time for all of us concerned about this serious disease.
"For triple-negative breast cancer, until just a few years ago, chemotherapy was our only systemic option beyond surgery and radiation.
"Recently, immunotherapy has shown benefit when combined with chemotherapy, which makes exploring a vaccine strategy even more significant."