(Editor's Note: October is national Breast Cancer Awareness month, and St. Joseph’s/Candler, along with media partners the Savannah Morning News and WSAV, lead programming throughout the month as part of the Paint the Town Pink awareness campaign.)
It really wasn’t supposed to happen to her. A native of Effingham County, 44-year-old Brandi Webb is a happily married mother to two sons and a daughter. A year ago she was slim and attractive, exercised regularly, ate healthily, had breastfed her kids, prided herself on keeping up with her checkups and mammograms, and loved her career as an oncology nurse for Effingham Cancer Care Center staffed by Summit Cancer Care physicians.
In July of 2024 Brandi had a mammogram that showed asymmetry in her right
breast. Diagnostics were run and everything was determined to be benign (non-cancerous). A six-month follow-up scan in January of 2025 looked the same, and again she was told to return in six months. But Brandi wanted to put her mind at rest before then and asked for a biopsy. The biopsy revealed she had a papilloma – a small, wart-like, but benign growth that develops in a milk duct. Because of this finding, she was referred to breast surgery at Candler – a standard protocol as often papilloma multiply and must be surgically removed.
Brandi really wasn’t worried and waited another six months before scheduling the surgery appointment. Looking back, she says, “I was 43. I was tired, but I thought it was perimenopause. I had three kids. I was getting older.”
By July 2025 the surgeon’s nurse practitioner assessed her risk of developing breast cancer as a moderate 12%. (A score of 20% is considered the threshold for additional scans.) However, an aunt in her 70’s had just been diagnosed with breast cancer, and that bumped up her score to 18%. An annual mammogram in September came back normal, but the nurse practitioner, whom Brandi now credits with saving her life, pushed for a breast MRI saying, “We know your body makes papillomas. You have breast implants. Let’s just get a baseline scan.”
Brandi had the breast MRI on Halloween.
“On Nov. 1 I woke up to get ready to travel to Atlanta for my daughter’s soccer game. I opened my emails and saw I had a new test result int my Patient Portal. I had two two-centimeter tumors and a lymph node that was suspicious. My husband wasn’t even awake yet.”
Brandi, an oncology nurse, just sat there and said, “Oh my God. Oh my God.” The results were shocking and totally unexpected.
Life was about to change. After a Nov. 6 biopsy and a visit with her oncologist, Dr. Alison Spellman, her cancer was staged as IIA, HER2-positive with lymph node involvement. Brandi teared up as she recalled telling her family.
“Honestly, I think even harder than telling my kids was telling my parents.” From a large, close, and exceptionally supportive family, she said, “I called one brother and he was so upset he couldn’t even talk to me. He just fell apart. We were all just so shocked.”
Brandi opted for a double mastectomy, received six rounds of chemotherapy and a course of radiation treatments which hit her hard. She lost her hair and had severe radiation fatigue. But through it all she attended all her children’s sports activities, relating how at one game, all the kids wore pink socks and had a prayer circle for her. Her community of friends, co-workers and family have been exceptionally supportive. Her name is always on a prayer list, and at least a week of meals were provided every time she had a treatment.
“Me and my daughter went to a Bruno Mars concert together a few weekends ago- something I just couldn’t do in April when I was in the midst of my treatments. My children are so relieved to see me active and happy again.”
Brandi is scheduled for breast reconstruction at the end of this year and returned to work in late July – but not to her beloved oncology co-workers. Having gone on this journey, she said, “I just need to step away from cancer.”
Now she provides home infusions to patients within an hour of her home and enjoys both the work and the flexibility of making her own schedule. She is quick to say that she never thought she’d be sitting across from a writer for the newspaper and talking about her diagnosis! She thought she just wanted to be done with it all and put the events of this year in the past.
But Brandi knows it is important to urge everyone to keep up with their mammograms.
“If you have dense breast tissue, ask more questions," she said. "Ask if additional scans - an MRI or an ultrasound - are recommended. This can happen to anybody. I’m a nurse. I worked in oncology. It wasn’t supposed to be me.”
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Oncology nurse shares why she needed extra scans | Exclusive
