Nurse Who Looks After Cancer Patients Finds Lump in Breast - PEOPLE

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Holly McCabe had been a nurse for 7 years when she found herself working in the oncology unit of St. Joseph Medical Center in Denver. Helping cancer patients through their difficult experiences led her to give herself a breast exam one night after work. On August 27, she found a lump.

She called her doctor right away and went in for an appointment three days later. "I ended up getting referred to get an ultrasound," she tells PEOPLE exclusively. "And then once I got the ultrasound, they were like, 'Oh wow, that's concerning-looking. We need to do a mammogram.'"

The doctors took a biopsy of the lump, which was in her right breast. The next day, while boarding a flight to her brother's wedding, her radiologist called and confirmed she had breast cancer. McCabe adds that none of her close family members had breast cancer so she never considered herself high-risk.

One week later, she learned she had been diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, a more invasive than other types of breast cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. It accounts for about 10-15% of all breast cancers. 

"Everything just kind of took off to the races. That point was a total whirlwind," McCabe says. "I quickly met with the oncologist, and the surgeon, and it just blew up from there."

In late September, McCabe began chemotherapy, which will last six months. On December 27th, she'll start the second round, which is 12 weeks.

"That will end February 28th, and then I will need a double or bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction," she adds. "Then I'll need radiation daily."

"After that — I think people often think that you're done — but there's a maintenance phase of immunotherapy that you receive for almost a year," she continues, adding that the road ahead could be quite long.

Holly McCabe has been an ICU and travel nurse for 7 years.

Holly McCabe

Since her diagnosis, McCabe has taken a leave of absence from her job. Now she's using her free time to share her story on social media.

"Day in my life-fighting cancer at 30 years old," she captioned a recent TikTok video. In another video, McCabe takes her followers on a journey with her to get her labs done, asking followers to pray for better results.

"Paying close attention to my liver this week," she writes in the TikTok.

Being able to share her story has helped her connect with people worldwide with similar experiences. She says: "It seems there are a large amount of young women fighting this. I didn't realize that before having it, and I think that's important to share as well. It's a lot of young women."

"I do fear for my own life, and at 30, that's not something I thought I would ever say," she continues.

"I wanted to share my story because I found my lump in a happenstance way of a woman living her life. I just thought I could do that for someone potentially. And if I can't do that, then I can make someone feel better about their day or make them feel less alone," she adds.

As McCabe looks ahead toward her treatment and the future, she says, the hardest part is knowing the toll that cancer takes. After all, she has seen it in her own patients.

"I think being a nurse has put me in a complicated scenario. Having worked through the pandemic in the ICU, I have a solid background and some pretty deep knowledge of what could go wrong and what the end of life would look like," she says.

Holly McCabe recieving chemotherapy after being diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer.

Holly McCabe

"I understand what it would look like if this cancer happened to spread to my organs, which isn't off the table," she continues. "It's been tough because of the knowledge that I have and how scary that is. And then also losing control."

She adds: "I love my job, I am really lucky to love my job, and I like helping others. And now I've been kind of stripped of that control and that honor and just been the patient where you don't have any control and you are going through it. And I hope it makes me a better nurse in the future and I'm granted that opportunity, but it's a pretty difficult situation to be in."

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