Staff photo / Dan Pompili Denise Huemme, center, in pink shirt, stands Thursday with some of her FoxConn Ohio co-workers in front of the Steward Health mobile mammography center at FoxConn Ohio’s annual Women’s Health Day event in Lordstown.

LORDSTOWN — Denise Huemme was 35 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer — the first time. Sixteen years later, she is still a survivor and wants her coworkers at FoxConn to have every advantage in beating the disease, too.

For the second year in a row, the Poland resident shared her story with some of her colleagues during FoxConn Ohio’s “Women’s Health Day” luncheon.

FoxConn Ohio’s health and wellness specialist, Kevin Watson, said the program began last year, and FoxConn sets aside days for men and women.

“Our women’s day, coming in May, with Mother’s Day, we wanted the focus to be on a lot of different topics,” he said. “Partnering with our providers to give our employees access is important to us. Whenever we can give something to our employees that is of no cost but of a huge value, why not do it, right?”

Huemme, FoxConn Ohio’s manager of indirect purchasing, was the first person to speak Thursday morning.

“I do not have the BRCA gene; it did not run in my family, but now it does. I’m Patient Zero,” she said. “I have a daughter, so now she’s going to start being checked at 25.”

The BRCA gene increases the risk of developing breast cancer from about 12% to between 45% and 85%. Watson said it was important to note that 85% of breast cancer occurs in women with no family history.

A Steward Health mammography van was on-site Thursday, and many women made appointments for screening, which Huemme encouraged. But she said when she first discovered the lump in her right breast in 2008, it was so small a mammogram did not pick it up. She needed an ultrasound and a biopsy. With a lumpectomy and a course of radiation, she thought she was free of the cancer.

And she was, for 14 years.

In 2021, it returned on the same side, she said. This time it looked like a dimple. But unlike the stage 1a cancer she discovered in 2008, this one had reached stage 3b, meaning it had spread, in this case to some of her lymph nodes.

Huemme underwent a double mastectomy and had to endure chemotherapy.

“And because I had had radiation before, I had an open wound for about a year, because it took so long to heal,” she said. Huemme finished her chemo right before she began working at FoxConn Ohio in November 2022.

“You all remember the short curly hair I had last year? Those were chemo curls, this is how my hair normally looks,” she joked.

Huemme said she is happy to share her story openly, to encourage other women to get screened and pay attention to any changes in their bodies. She said some of her coworkers have reached out to her about their concerns.

Last year, one woman talked to Huemme after finding a lump.

“I think just talking about it definitely helps. She’s fine now, by the way. And other women have reached out,” she said. “It’s not an easy subject to talk to most cancer survivors about, but because I’ve been through it twice, I always tell them to reach out if they have any questions.” Huemme said she emphasizes how important self checks are because her first lump was not visible in the mammogram.

The women also heard Thursday from some other health professionals from Steward, who discussed issues like obesity, sleep and stress, and how they are linked.

Dr. Sheetal Nijhawan, Medical Director of Bariatric Surgery at Sharon Regional Health Center, discussed the challenges people face in overcoming obesity. She emphasized that the condition is a medical one, that is much more complicated to deal with than just minimizing calories and increasing exercise.

Nijhawan shared with the women a video, titled “Meet Amanda” made by Atrium Health Floyd in Rome, Georgia. The video describes how brain chemistry and hormones play a role in determining the body’s set weight, much like the thermostat in a house.

She noted that while some medications can help patients lose weight and maintain it, they only work as long as the patient takes the medicine.

Rebecca Montgomery, a dietician at Sharon Regional also discussed how important it is for women to pay attention to the evidence-based medical science around dieting and metabolism and not the latest social media fads.

She said to avoid anything that promises fast results, diets that cut out entire food groups — like carbohydrates which are a vital energy source, necessary for the body to function — any program trying to sell them something, and most importantly:

“If it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is,” she said.

Have an interesting story? Contact Dan Pompili by email at dpompili@vindy.com. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, @TribToday.