Annette Turner was shocked when her 8-year-old daughter Chrissy came to her with troubling news. The little girl said “Mommy, I have been scared. I have this lump.” Chrissy’s tumor had been there for a while before the child worked up the courage to show her mom. On November 9, doctors diagnosed a rare form of breast cancer called secretory breast carcinoma.
If there’s any good news it is that doctors at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, are confident the tumor can be successfully removed. Chrissy’s physician Dr. Brian Butcher explained that she will undergo a simple mastectomy to remove all remaining breast tissue to prevent the cancer from coming back.
This isn’t the first time that the Turner family has faced a battle with cancer. Chrissy’s mother Annette was diagnosed with cervical cancer, and her husband was diagnosed with non-Hodgekins lymphoma. Perhaps that’s why the little girl was so frightened. She told ABC News that “I was kind of scared to figure out what it was.”
With their medical bills mounting, the family is trying to raise money online to help pay for Chrissy’s treatment.
Secretory breast carcinoma is extremely rare, according to information in Pediatric Surgery International Journal. It accounts for less than 1% of all breast cancer cases. And although the Turner family is still reeling from Chrissy’s diagnosis, the prognosis for her full recovery is very good.
