Katy’s Courage Katy Huth fights on after tumultuous year and a breast cancer diagnosis

Katy’s Courage

Katy Huth fights on after tumultuous year and a breast cancer diagnosis

By Bre Offenberger

COVID-19 shifted everyone’s perspective in some way, but for Katy Huth, it completely changed her life.

Huth, owner of the Yoga Loft and an ER nurse, was already facing the effects of the pandemic. Both her and her husband’s businesses shut down, so she tried to find something positive to focus on. She took it upon herself to practice self-reflection as well as 100 consecutive days of exercise, which got her through October 2020.

In November, Huth’s next step was to alleviate her eczema, which was heightened due to the constant stressors of last year, so she visited a dermatologist for the first time. The doctor told her to return in a month for a full assessment. In December, the dermatologist revealed some concerns.

She didn’t like the look of the skin under Huth’s left breast, so she asked if she’sd ever had a mammogram.

“I laughed,” Huth says. “I was like, ‘Well, I’m only 41. That’s not something you do at 41.’ The only thing she said to me was, ‘I’m just concerned about this skin,’ and I was like, ‘It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s been there for a while.’ I said I’m not concerned. The last thing she said to me as I was walking out the door, she said, ‘Please promise to go get a mammogram.’”

Huth kept that promise. The OhioHealth Bing Cancer Center booked her for a mammogram the same week. The next day, a nurse called with similar concerns and asked her to come in that afternoon. Huth underwent another mammogram and an ultrasound, and after a biopsy the next week, it was confirmed. “That was definitely the scariest time I’d ever experienced, just waiting for the diagnosis,” Huth says. Huth needed surgery. She found out she was estrogen- progesterone positive and had invasive lobular carcinoma, which means the cancer has spread to the breast tissue. She also had carcinoma in situ with a five-anda-half-centimeter tumor. She needed clean margins of about nine centimeters for surgery, so she was told she needed a total mastectomy on her left breast. Huth ultimately decided to undergo a bilateral mastectomy.

In February, she started chemotherapy, receiving four treatments every three weeks. However, she was allergic to the treatment.

“The nurses at the Columbus Oncology were fantastic,” Huth says. “On my third treatment, when I had another reaction, the nurse was with me the entire time, stopped the treatment right away. I cannot say enough about how wonderful my experience was with that.”

She is currently undergoing radiation treatment.

Huth says the three hardest parts about cancer are the diagnosis, surgery and thought of losing her hair. She planned to accept the hair loss, but her 9-year-old daughter said something that changed her mind.

“She goes, ‘Mom, people will make fun of you if you lose your hair,’ because as a 9-year-old, that’s powerful and impact-

ful, and it really signifies that something’s wrong with you,” Huth says.

She connected with Claire from Over My Head Boutique, which dedicates its time to helping cancer patients at risk of losing their hair, Huth says. Thanks to Over My Head’s cold capping process, which shrinks the blood vessels in your scalp and decreases how much chemo enters your roots, Huth says she only lost about 20 percent of her hair.

Though Huth recognizes there is still a lot of work to be done, she is already looking ahead. She, Claire and another breast cancer survivor have formed a group through the Yoga Loft to fundraise and participate in the annual Pelotonia bike ride in August. Huth says she plans on completing between 50 and 100 miles.

Huth wants to thank her doctors as well as Claire; Amanda, another breast cancer survivor; her cancer group and her students at the Yoga Loft for helping her through this year. Though 2020 wasn’t kind to her, she is taking some positives from it.

“I remember just thinking, ‘This is such a rough year,’ and ‘How could this happen?’ and, ‘Oh, woe is me,’ type of thing,” Huth says, “but then I realized I would have never taken a pause in life. If COVID wouldn’t have made me stop, I definitely wouldn’t have gone to the dermatologist.”

Quality Cancer Care Close to Home Sonia Abuzakhm, M.D. Scott Blair, M.D. Jarred Burkart, M.D. Shabana Dewani, M.D. Christopher George, M.D. Andrew Grainger, M.D. Joseph Hofmeister, M.D.

Bre Offenberger is an editorial assistant. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.

Elizabeth Kander, M.D. Peter Kourlas, M.D. Kavya Krishna, M.D. Erin Macrae, M.D. Nse Ntukidem, M.D. Emily Saul, D.O. Thomas Sweeney, M.D.

Patricia Bordner, CNP Jennifer Seiler, CNP Lauren Sockrider, CNP Brittany Sweigart, CNP Rebecca Frustaci, CNP

All Physicians are Board Certified 810 Jasonway Ave., Columbus, Ohio 43214 6700 Perimeter Drive, Dublin, Ohio 43016 coainc.net / tel: (614) 442-3130