Local woman trusts body, battles breast cancer
By Mike Ramczyk
Sports Editor
Imagine actually having cancer but your doctor insists you’re fine and all you need is a little less chocolate and caffeine.
Holly Barrett unfortunately had to live that hell and wait more than a year before learning her now-enormous tumor had tripled in size and indeed was cancer.
By January 2015, after a second mammogram revealed the 39-year-old had been stricken with ductal carcinoma in situ, Barrett had both breasts removed and began intense radiation that nearly caused her third-degree burns.
The active, athletic actress and stuntwoman is still in a fight for her life, though radiation ended in June.
“I was told I was fine,” she said Tuesday night via telephone. “But I had dense tissue and pain. I knew it was wrong.”
“Five months later, I went to the doctor and said this is hurting me so bad, you need to just cut it out.”
Barrett, who currently lives in Kenosha, is the team photographer for the Southern Lakes Blue Devils semi-pro football team, which will host a cancer benefit game for her Saturday night at 6 p.m. at Catholic Central High School.
Barrett said she is hoping to raise awareness for breast cancer and emphasize that women need to swallow their pride and see a doctor if something is wrong.
Unfortunately for Barrett, both a radiologist and surgeon couldn’t detect anything serious in June 2014, when Holly underwent her first mammogram.
“The surgeon told me to cut back on coffee, cut back on caffeine and take some vitamin E,” Barrett explained. “And he wanted to do another mammogram for comparison sake.”
Period of uncertainty
Unemployed and insured by the state, Barrett knew a mammogram wasn’t possible, and she tried to trust the diagnosis.
But she couldn’t shake the fact that her body was breaking down.
“He never even felt my lump in my breast,” Barrett said about the surgeon. “I was getting sharp, shooting pains five to 10 times per day. That was the tumor growing.”
“I knew something was seriously wrong.”
Barrett’s fears grew by September, when her thyroid gland began to fail.
Since 1999, Barrett said she has had Hashimoto’s disease, where the immune system attacks the thyroid. She had taken medicine for years, remained active and attempted to eat right. And her thyroid levels had remained remarkably consistent.
Suddenly, her levels began fluctuating drastically, and she’d have her medicine lowered every six weeks.
“My immune system stopped attacking my thyroid and started attacking my cancer,” she said. “My hunch was correct. The change in my thyroid made me realize something’s wrong with my breast.”
Barrett said many women have too much pride and will blow it off, thinking they’re fine.
A chance meeting
By September, three months after her seemingly clean mammogram, Barrett took a job with Hewlett-Packard in southern Wisconsin.
What happened four months later possibly saved her life.
Barrett was sent down to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America to fix some office equipment.
Still fighting physical pain and battling her pride to accept there may be something seriously wrong, Barrett asked around. Eventually, she had gained enough trust with someone to share her story.
“Not a lot of women want to talk about their privates,” she said. “But I felt like someone up above was telling me to get this done.”
So on Jan. 30 of this year, thanks to the informed advice, Barrett was back in a doctor’s office.
This time, all it took was a physical exam and a doctor to actually touch her lump.
“Without having the biopsy, I’m going to tell you you have breast cancer,” the doctor told Holly, who said she already knew.
“The mass was so large,” Holly said. “It was insanely different from 2013. The radiologist actually rushed to the room to check the results when she heard about it. They said I already had breast cancer in 2013 at my first mammogram.”
Barrett had both breasts removed and was required to take 33 doses of radiation over a seven-week period.
“It’s devastation to your body,” said Holly of the intense treatment that affected her chest, from the bottom of her rib cage to her collarbone. “It literally kills the good and bad cells. My whole right side was fried.”
In June, Barrett finished radiation. This week, she began physical therapy.
“Not a good day today,” she posted on her Facebook wall late Tuesday night.
Planning a future
Barrett isn’t out of the woods, yet. She said she feels her cancer can return at any time, and she was hesitant to mention words like remission or survivor.
“It’s not something I never have to worry about again,” she said. “I must be checked often.”
Barrett said she is very close with her parents, who have been “very supportive of me.” She added it’s been hard on them, though, as they fear the loss of another child.
Barrett’s older brother died at the age of 28 in the early 2000s.
Barrett also has a younger sister. She truly believes her brother, grandparents and aunts and uncles were looking out for her, and she is thankful that treatment is over.
Barrett is working on her third screenplay, and she has recently gotten work on the TV show “Chicago Fire” and the movie “Public Enemies,” which starred Johnny Depp and was filmed in Wisconsin.
She has acted and worked as a stuntwoman for 10 years and is currently working out of Chicago when she’s able to find acting jobs. She most recently was hired for a TV commercial.
She didn’t quit her day job, as she considers her job at Hewlett-Packard a “blessing in disguise.” Her dream job is acting.
At Saturday’s football game, Barrett will be snapping away the action from the sideline. She hopes her experience helps other women to be their own biggest advocates.
“If you feel any kind of lump whatsoever, get help,” she said. “I want to move on with my life and help women catch cancer early. If you’re blown off, get another opinion. If they blow you off, get another opinion. If you know something is wrong, something is wrong.”
If you go…
What: Southern Lakes Blue Devils vs. Milwaukee Hurricane, a Cancer Benefit for Holly Barrett
Where: Catholic Central High School, 148 McHenry St.
When: 6 p.m., Saturday
Lowdown: Every year, 220,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer, according to cancer.com. One in eight women will be diagnosed in their lives. Holly Barrett had a mammogram in 2013 and was told she was fine. More than a year later, she was diagnosed and had to have both breasts removed. Now two months removed from radiation, Barrett is trying to return to her life as an actress, stuntwoman and screenwriter. Those who attend are encouraged to wear pink in support of Barrett, who said her fight may not be over.
How to help: You can donate to help breast cancer research at the game. Barrett said she hopes to help raise awareness with her story.
For more information, call Tom Hawkins at (262) 716-1147.
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