![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/10-14-10-Ar00101002.jpg\")
Brenda Broughton, left middle, poses for a photo with her \u201cBunco Girls\u201d at the annual Power of Pink banquet in May. Kyle Troutman\/ktroutman@cassville-democrat.com<\/p>\nBrenda Broughton, left middle, poses for a photo with her \u201cBunco Girls\u201d at the annual Power of Pink banquet in May. Kyle Troutman\/ktroutman@cassville-democrat.com<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/10-14-10-Ar00101003.jpg\")
Brenda and Steve Broughton are pictured together. Brenda Broughton, a 67-year-old mom of three, grandmother to nine and great grandmother to eight, spent the last 22 months fighting to be healthy after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Kyle Troutman\/ktroutman@cassville-democrat.com<\/p>\n
Broughton: \u2018Even my granddaughters who are in their 20\u2019s got mammograms\u2019<\/p>\n
BY JORDAN TROUTMAN cassvilledemocrat@outlook.com<\/p>\n
Brenda Broughton \u2014 a 67-year-old mom of three, grandmother to nine and great grandmother to eight \u2014 has spent the last 22 months fighting to be healthy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOut of my 16 female cousins, 12 of them have been diagnosed with cancer,\u201d Broughton said. \u201cNine of them had breast cancer. It just never crossed my mind that it would happen to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Broughton said she even purchased cancer insurance for her husband, but not herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom had colon cancer, my dad had bladder cancer and my sister had breast cancer,\u201d she said. \u201cI just didn\u2019t think it would happen to me, but I should have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Broughton has been getting regular mammograms since she turned 55.<\/p>\n
\u201cI found the knot in my breast myself,\u201d she said. \u201cI went in and had a mammogram and biopsy on the same day. Within three days I knew I had Infiltrating Ductal Carcinoma.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first felt it, my first thought was to ignore it. I thought it would just go away. It took me two or three days to finally decide to make an appointment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Broughton\u2019s doctor wanted to see her previous mammogram films, so she collected those from her former doctor in Oklahoma.<\/p>\n
\u201cI noticed an itchy spot,\u201d Broughton said. \u201cI was scratching this spot over and over for a week, then I felt the knot in my right breast.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Jan. 18, 2024, Broughton had a bi-lateral mastectomy with reconstruction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided to have both breasts removed, and I figured since they were already in there, they could do the reconstruction too,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to wait, I just wanted to get over it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Less than a month later, on Valentine\u2019s Day 2024, Broughton had to go back in to have the reconstruction removed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got an infection,\u201d she said. \u201cThey had to get it under control. They told me after I got the infection that it is better to wait for reconstruction until after you heal from the mastectomy. I don\u2019t know why no one told me that before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Broughton was on antibiotics for a full year and even had a hospital stay in March 2024 for IV antibiotics.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of the infection, I wasn\u2019t able to have chemotherapy or radiation,\u201d she said. \u201cIt could have been life threatening since chemo is so hard on the body. And, because I had the infection for so long, I timed out. Apparently, there is a time limit after diagnosis to do chemo.\u201d
Broughton goes to have her blood tested every three months to check for cancer cells in her body.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no cancer spread to my lymph nodes,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was as scary, as it could be when they told me I couldn\u2019t have chemo, I thought it was a death sentence. The only preventative care I have is the blood tests. We think they got it all, and we pray every day that they did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Broughton said when she broke the news to her family, they were shocked too.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy daughters, Melissa (50) and Kylie (46) went to have a mammogram done immediately,\u201d she said. \u201cEven my granddaughters who are in their 20s got mammograms.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy husband has been wonderful, and my son, Tug, and my daughter in-law, Angie, moved down here from Oklahoma to help take care of me. They stayed with me for months.\u201d<\/p>\n
Broughton and her husband just celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are from Oklahoma, but we live at Roaring River,\u201d she said. \u201cMy husband works in the office, and we are campsite hosts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Between January 2024 and January 2025 Broughton had five surgeries.
\u201cRight now, another reconstruction surgery is still up in the air, but I\u2019m pretty sure I will get it,\u201d she said. \u201cI have so much scar tissue from all the surgeries, so I am trying to make sure my body has a chance to heal before I jump back into a reconstructive surgery. Maybe this winter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Broughton said the advice she has for women is to get checked and stay on top of their testing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got the genetic testing done, and I am a carrier,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is interesting, my son has a higher chance of getting breast cancer from the genes I carry than my daughters do.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was the first in the family to do the genetic testing, and now a bunch of them have, which is good, especially for their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Broughton said some of her family members are afraid to have the genetic testing done in fear of their insurance rates going up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems crazy to me that a test can affect insurance, but it is a possibility,\u201d she said. \u201cEither way, regular testing and exams are so very important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Broughton was one of the Power of Pink \u201cPink Ladies\u201d for 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cPower of Pink was wonderful and is a wonderful organization,\u201d she said. \u201cJanice [McCracken] is amazing. She started this up and turned it into something so great. Her whole family is involved and it is a lot of work, but she always gets it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2025 Pink Ladies\u2019 stories will be printed each week in the month of October in the Cassville Democrat, and 10 percent of all advertising in the month of October will be donated to the Power of Pink.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brenda Broughton, left middle, poses for a photo with her \u201cBunco Girls\u201d at the annual Power of Pink…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[64,63,22140,17579,46676,336,132345,128],"class_list":["post-216516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-genetics","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-awareness","tag-breast-cancer","tag-broughton","tag-genetics","tag-power-of-pink","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}