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Oct 29, 2009 9:49 pm US/Central
Carrollton Woman Tells Cancer Story To Help Teens
CARROLLTON (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
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Kalinda Lodes
KTVT / KTXA
Any teenager would be nervous about the high school prom. With everyone wondering who you're with and what you're wearing – it's enough to make your palms sweat.
For North Texan Kalinda Lodes, the thought of attending her senior prom was terrifying. "I kept telling my mom 'I'm not going. I'm not going.' There's no dress out there that's going to allow me to look okay," Kalinda recalled.
Kalinda is now 24-years-old. She was 18-years-old when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. "My first thought was this can't be happening to me. They made a mistake," Kalinda recalled when first hearing the news.
Kalinda's treatment included a mastectomy that left the teenager not wanting to go back to school. "It was an embarrassment issue," she said. "I didn't to walk around and them be looking at me or staring at my chest, seeing if things were different from their point of view. It was scary."
Until her diagnosis Kalinda had been healthy and had no family history of breast cancer. What happened to her was rare. Her doctor noticed a cyst that in two weeks had doubled in size. "It had gone from golf ball size to the size of a baseball," Kalinda said.
Kalinda had reconstructive surgery. Now, she's a senior in college and wants to use her personal experience to reach high school students. "If they can have that education, at a more younger age in high school, when they think they're invincible, then I think that's what's important. That way they know what to do if they feel something different."
Now Kalinda is about to begin another chapter in her life – she recently became engaged.
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