Bonny Doon woman faced cancer treatment, CZU fire at same time – Santa Cruz Sentinel

Whereas she was present process lively breast most cancers remedy, Leigh-Anne Lehrman mentioned what felt like a few of her most therapeutic moments had been getting along with associates for espresso, as she did on a current weekend on the Iveta cafe on Santa Cruz’s Westside. (Jessica A. York — Santa Cruz Sentinel)

SANTA CRUZ — On Aug. 20, 2020, Leigh-Anne Lehrman’s Bonny Doon house burned to the bottom.

The catastrophic occasion, equally skilled by lots of in the course of the summer season’s CZU Lightning Complicated fires, struck whereas Lehrman was recovering from double mastectomy surgical procedure. Simply 11 days later, she would start a chemotherapy routine to deal with aggressive triple-negative breast most cancers.

When the fire-triggering lightning storms started, Lehrman was isolating at her now-husband’s San Mateo County house as a result of coronavirus pandemic. Her two teenage daughters and household pets had been at house in San Lorenzo Valley, nevertheless.

“I keep in mind I had this pit in my abdomen after I noticed it (the lightning) as a result of I used to be eager about Bonny Doon and what a tinderbox it was,” Lehrman recalled throughout a current interview. “I used to be nonetheless in fairly unhealthy form — I used to be not in any form to stroll or drive or something. The facility went out, in fact, and I couldn’t attain them. It was a brilliant scary time.”

The women, canine and birds had been in a position to safely evacuate to Davenport with among the household’s possessions, however a lot was misplaced, Lehrman mentioned. Her older daughter returned to her faculty sorority for housing, whereas the youthful daughter was taken in and cared for by neighborhood members. Towards the top of her remedy, Lehrman mentioned, she was dwelling in Aptos together with her youthful daughter and had returned to work as a doctor assistant at Palo Alto Medical Basis’s Westside clinic.

The mixed devastating fireplace and most cancers remedy took an emotional and traumatic toll on Lehrman’s thoughts and physique, nevertheless, mentioned Lehrman, 54.

Greater than three years later and on the tail finish of Breast Most cancers Consciousness Month, Lehrman mentioned she felt fortunate to have found the fast-growing most cancers throughout a routine screening within the midst of the pandemic. So few individuals had been sustaining such scheduled appointments that Lehrman, who additionally was licensed in 2001 as a naturopathic physician by means of an accredited program at Washington’s Bastyr College, went in for her screening two months early. As soon as identified, she mentioned she opted for the ‘nuclear choice’ of a double mastectomy as a substitute of a extra conservative surgical procedure as a result of “although I’ve a background in naturopathic drugs, I consider in honoring Western drugs.”

“I acquired by means of it,” Lehrman mentioned of that point in her life. “It was rather a lot and it undoubtedly introduced me to my knees.”

As her restoration progressed, Lehrman mentioned she began to comprehend that she wanted extra help.

“My restoration was a bit of bit stalled and I noticed that I wanted to revisit naturopathic drugs, which in my absence had been rebranded as integrative drugs and I feel it was an actual enchancment, truly,” Lehrman mentioned. “It was a means for standard medical doctors to be educated to make use of one of the best of all of conventional practices and what was referred to as ‘different medical traditions.’”

Going past simply enhancing her personal mind-body well being, Lehrman’s private well being journey induced a ripple impact in her profession. Lehrman took a job working as a doctor assistant providing holistic and integrative drugs together with her employer’s guardian firm, Sutter Well being, at its San Carlos clinic.

Trying again on her experiences, Lehrman mentioned one factor that has modified is she now feels a visceral connection together with her sufferers that differs from earlier than the hearth and most cancers. A few of her private historical past involves mild in working with sufferers in the course of the “Integrative Drugs Breast Most cancers Help” shared medical appointment collection. Lehrman works with Dr. Gina Serraiocco, an integrative and inside drugs physician with the Palo Alto Medical Basis, to show holistic drugs approaches to individuals newly identified with, or in lively remedy for, breast most cancers.