Elevate Salon helps Annette “fight the fight” against recurrence of her breast cancer

Talking with her, it’s hard to wrap your head around the fact that vivacious Annette Ford — mother of three and grandmother of 10, with a great-grandchild on the way — is navigating through a second breast cancer diagnosis.

Born and raised in Buffalo, Annette was first diagnosed more than 16 years ago at another healthcare facility and treated then with chemotherapy and radiation. She had been in remission until about two years ago. When she began feeling really tired, her doctor at that time told her the breast cancer had returned, and she was doing fairly well with the treatment until that doctor moved to another city, referring Annette to another provider with which she was unhappy.

She decided it was time to look for a new doctor on her own: By then, the lymph nodes in her neck had become so painfully swollen she had to hold her throat to swallow. And she was having trouble catching her breath from just walking across the room.

“That’s when I went to praying,” says Annette, a “faithful servant” and a nurse for 42 years, now retired. “I said, ‘Lord, you’ve got to save me.’”

Finding her way to Roswell Park

She searched online for top specialists in the area and decided to make an appointment at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center with Wesley Hicks, MD, DDS, Chair of the Department of Head & Neck/Plastic & Reconstructive. Dr. Hicks sent Annette for initial diagnostic tests, then connected her with Roswell Park medical oncologist Ellis Levine, MD. After more tests, including a CT and echocardiogram, Dr. Levine told Annette she was out of breath because fluid caused by her cancer had accumulated around her heart and in her lungs. He sent her immediately to have the fluid drained before admitting her to intensive care, where she spent four days beginning treatment for the recurrence of her breast cancer.

“I came into Roswell in a wheelchair and was having trouble breathing. When I came to see Dr. Levine, I said, ‘You said spend a day with y’all, not spend all the days,’” she recalls, laughing. “Dr. Levine has been excellent,” she adds. “He was very thorough with going over and explaining everything.”

Healing help from New Era Cap Foundation Elevate Salon

As happens with many patients, Annette began losing her hair once she started chemotherapy to treat her returned breast cancer. “It was coming out in droves. When I came in for a clinic appointment, one of the nurses said, ‘We have a salon, you need to go down there.’ I never liked wigs, but I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to have to get used to one.’ All you can think of is that your hair is coming out and you don’t look good. You don’t want to go anywhere. It changes your whole life,” she says.

Annette describes the ladies who welcomed her on her first visit to Elevate Salon as “very sweet.” They sat her at a table, gave her a catalogue of wigs to look through, and she found one she liked that looked almost like her own hairstyle, and the staff showed her how to put it on with the cap underneath – and made sure she understood there would be no charge. Thanks to generous donations to the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation, patients experiencing hair loss due to their treatment may receive one complimentary wig and one complimentary head covering.

“I love my wig! I call it my hat,” Annette says. “For them to have that for women, and help somebody in that process helps a lot. It’s amazing. It’s an uplift that makes women proud of themselves again. All your self-esteem builds up.”

Today, Annette’s photo adorns the wall outside Elevate Salon on the first floor of the Scott Bieler Clinical Sciences Center, near the Breast Oncology Center. Her experience was so positive that she tells friends and friends’ husbands who may be undergoing treatment at Roswell Park about Elevate Salon.

“It put a little thought in my head. The men need a baseball cap too. The salon is not just for women, it’s for men too,” she advises. “It brings up in you the belief that ‘I can do this. I can fight the fight I need to fight.’”

Annette is still undergoing chemotherapy for her breast cancer, but describes her experience at Roswell Park as the best she has seen in Western New York. “We have to make sure we pray for Roswell Park. We have to keep making them the place that stands out,” she says. “You cannot tell me that God does not have his spirit in his place!”