Chemo Run Complete, Breast Cancer Patient Prepares for Next Steps 

This past spring, Stephanie Workman Phillips was feeling great. Dedicated to fitness and overall health, the 48-year-old mother of two was keen on working out and eating right. There’s no way she could have imagined that #chemosummer was coming. 

Her life was turned upside down in May when a lump appeared in her left armpit. Stephanie said the growth came out of nowhere and was obviously a cause for concern. She showed a photo of the area to a physician friend who told her she should get it checked. 

After seeing her primary care doctor, Stephanie was referred for a diagnostic ultrasound. Nothing suspicious had been found when she underwent a mammogram a little more than a year earlier. 

“That should have been my first clue that this was not good,” she said. 

Staff immediately saw something wasn’t right and had Stephanie stay on site for more imaging. Those scans showed further abnormalities and urgency picked up. 

“They said, ‘There’s something there. We’re not saying it’s cancer, but we need to schedule a biopsy,’” Stephanie said. 

She didn’t have to wait long. The next day, she underwent a biopsy and started the waiting period for results. When the pathology report arrived in her email, Stephanie was having lunch at Panera with a different physician friend. When she shared the findings, her friend’s reaction ended hope that this was a false alarm. 

“I handed her my phone, and she looked at it and her jaw dropped and she started crying,” Stephanie said. “That’s when I knew it was serious. I needed to deal with something.” 

The diagnosis was Stage 3 breast cancer with tumors in a conglomerate of lymph nodes, explaining the large lump under Stephanie’s arm. Imaging also found a tumor in her left breast. 

Her friend set her up with an oncologist, who prescribed five months of chemotherapy. After a port was implanted, Stephanie’s treatment led off with four rounds of a combination of drugs, including adriamycin, nicknamed “Red Devil” because of its color and harsh side effects, including nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and hair loss. Those treatments occurred every two weeks for two months. 

#Chemosummer, as her daughters called it, was underway. 

“It’s nasty business,” Stephanie said of her early treatment. “I started with that, and I’m glad. I would rather start with the worst and work my way to better than go the other way.” 

During her treatments, her youngest daughter graduated from high school. There was no way Stephanie was going to miss the ceremony despite feeling rough. 

“I went wearing sunglasses like some kind of diva and praying I could get through because I was so sick from the treatment,” she said. 

Following the ceremony in Oro Valley, Arizona, Stephanie spent three nights with her daughter at the Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain in nearby Marana as a graduation gift. It was there that one of the treatment’s side effects appeared: large clumps of her hair began falling out. 

“I checked into the Ritz with my full head of hair, and I left completely bald,” Stephanie said. 

Even with more challenges coming, including lumpectomy and radiation therapy, Stephanie celebrated the end of her chemo in early October, coincidentally Breast Cancer Awareness Month, by ringing the bell at the University of Arizona Cancer Center. 

Her daughters, both of whom attend the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her parents were there for the moment. She said her children took time off from work and school to drive her to the last treatment session, bought her flowers, made signs of encouragement, and took photos and videos. 

“They’ve been great,” Stephanie said. “Part of ringing the bell was for them because I felt like there was still so much to do. It’s a little premature, but it was important to them.” 

She and her boyfriend of five years and her daughters sometimes made short trips between her treatments. Even then, reality often set in, including the time she went boogie boarding in Southern California. 

“It was as if I had been running sprints for hours after 10 minutes,” she said. “But I really think continuing to exercise helped me.” 

Finishing #chemosummer was an accomplishment, even with more struggles ahead. Stephanie is hoping for a better 2027 and knows that this year could have been worse had she not acted when she saw changes in her body. 

“If you know something isn’t feeling right or you notice something’s different, you have to make the time, you have to cancel your work meeting, you have to rearrange your schedule,” she said. “You have to make your health a priority because no one else is going to advocate for you. If I had let this go a little bit longer, it would be a very different story.”