Rohnert Park Woman Celebrates 'Previously Impossible' Surgery

ROHNERT PARK, CA — One surgery at a time, a husband-and-wife team is doing something previously impossible: helping women retain the sensation in their breasts after a mastectomy.

Violet Page, a 21-year-old Rohnert Park resident, is one of those women. For October’s Breast Cancer Awareness month, Page is telling her story.

Now a student at Sonoma State University, Page was 19 years old when she learned she carried a harmful genetic mutation, BRCA-1, which put her risk of developing breast cancer in her lifetime to 87 percent and her risk of developing ovarian cancer between 40 percent and 60 percent.

The tests, Page said, confirmed what she already knew from an early age. Her grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 30 and died at age 35 — six or seven years before Page was born. Then, when Page was 19, her 35-year-old aunt died after battling breast cancer for five years.

“I knew I had a high risk,” Page said. “When my aunt got sick, she tested positive for the BRCA-1 mutation. My dad has it so I had a 50-50 chance. So I went and got tested in summer 2018 and found out I had it.”

Page recalled seeing her aunt die.

“When she passed away it was really scary,” Page said. “Seeing it firsthand, watching her lose the battle to breast cancer, I knew I needed to get it done and have preventive surgery.”

She started doing her research, which led her to a Bay Area breast cancer support meetup where she met Dr. Anne Peled.

Page would become the 100th woman to receive a pioneering sensation-preserving mastectomy from Dr. Anne Peled, a plastic surgeon, and her husband, Dr. Ziv Peled, a peripheral nerve/plastic surgeon, at Sutter’s California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) in San Francisco.

“What we do during a mastectomy is keep and reconstruct nerves so women are able to regain their sensations,” Anne said in a phone interview with Patch. “We are really excited we have developed a technique to help women like Violet.”

Anne, a breast cancer survivor, explained that Page was dealt the same genetic mutation Angelina Jolie was born with.

“It predisposes women to a significant, 70-80 percent, risk of developing breast cancer,” Anne said. “Page had an aunt who died very young, in her 30s. When people see family members go through that, it hits home so much harder.

“What Violet decided to do at a very young age was to have a proactive mastectomy which is incredibly effective at reducing the risk of breast cancer to 2-3 percent. What we do is different, it is immediate reconstruction.”

The whole process takes two-three hours, with two-four weeks of recovery time.

“To see women taking steps to not get breast cancer, to save their lives, is incredible, and when we can help them still feel and look like themselves, it is one of my favorite things,” Anne said.

The message, Anne said, is for women to know their family history and breast cancer risk. And for women who are diagnosed with it to know there is hope because as technology continues to improve, their chances get better and better, she said.

Page, who is fully recovered after having the surgery this past summer, is grateful she met Anne.

“Basically, when women get cancer or have a mutation, they are not really told 'when you wake up you are not going to have sensation,'” Page said. “So I am grateful to have found an awesome doctor. I had done my homework; I started looking before I even had confirmation of the mutation.

“I was lucky to run into Dr. Peled. When you choose to have preventative surgery, so many people see it as this huge controversy. But Team Peled was so validating and supportive and made me feel like my decision was the right one.”

She is also thankful for everyone in her hometown of Garberville who rallied around her by donating nearly $10,000 to a GoFundMe campaign for her medical expenses. Many knew she had something going on medically, she said, but only a few close friends knew exactly what.

“Getting it out there was really empowering, it was amazing to receive so much support,” Page said.

She urges anyone with a family history of breast cancer, or any type of cancer, to get genetic testing.

“Knowledge is huge,” Page said. “You just really have to advocate for yourself and your health. It is crazy to think so many people think you can’t get breast cancer when you are this young, that so many people don’t start to worry about this until so much later. You are never too young.”