Trusting her gut on gynecologic cancer

Every three months, Jennifer Angelon – from Holbrook, Suffolk County on Long Island – makes the two-plus-hour drive to see the Westchester County doctor who saved her life, twice.

Gizelka David-West, M.D., a gynecologic oncologist at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco and Phelps Hospital in Sleepy Hollow, first heard from Angelon in 2022 after her Long Island gynecologist diagnosed her with uterine, or endometrial, cancer – the most common gynecologic cancer and one you are probably hearing about more as September is Gynecologic Cancer Awareness Month. The American Cancer Society said that there will be about 67,880 diagnoses of the disease in the United States this year, while about 13, 250 sufferers will die from it. But there are also more than 600,000 survivors of uterine cancer as well.

Looking to be among those survivors, a stunned Angelon reached out to a friend, who happened to be David-West’s sister-in-law. David-West made time to speak with Angelon, advising her on the next steps – to determine the stage of the cancer and consider a referral to a Northwell doctor on Long Island. However, Angelon’s gut instinct told her that David-West’s responsiveness, knowledge and demeanor made her the right doctor—even if it meant driving more than two hours for treatment.

A week after speaking to her, Angelon made the trip to Westchester. The doctor outlined a plan for surgery, with Angelon undergoing a full hysterectomy and cancer-staging procedure in December 2022, performed laparoscopically via robotic surgery. Tests showed she had stage 1 endometrial cancer, which has a five-year survival rate of 95%. Angelon was able to return to work just four weeks later with no further treatment needed at that time.

But the story didn’t end there. In the summer of 2023, Angelon began to feel a stitch in her side, and, later that summer, she noticed a sensitive lump in her stomach on the left/middle side. Her primary care doctor sent her for a CT scan, which apparently showed nothing significant. However, Angelon trusted her imperiled gut and called David-West, who also had concerns and sent Angelon for a PET scan at Northwell’s South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore on Long Island.

Two days later, David-West delivered the news that the scan was highly suspicious for an isolated recurrence of the cancer. A biopsy then confirmed that a cancer cell had settled in one of Angelon’s oblique muscles, where a new tumor was growing. Within a week, Angelon was scheduled for surgery at Northern Westchester Hospital with David-West and her colleague, Paul Strombom, M.D., who is a colon and rectal surgeon at Phelps and Northern Westchester hospitals.

They successfully removed the cancer and performed reconstructive work on the muscle last October. A couple of weeks later, pathology confirmed that the entire tumor was removed with negative margins. To be safe, Angelon underwent radiation therapy around Christmas until January of this year at South Shore with William Chen, M.D., a radiation oncologist.

Angelon has credited David-West and her Northwell doctors with saving her life twice:

“I don’t care what doctors tell you, unless you’re speaking with Dr. Gizelka David-West. Listen to your gut. If it helps even one person, I suggest you listen to your body. Go to another doctor until you find someone who listens to you.”

Now Angelon and David-West, patient and doctor, make time for a lunch date in Westchester County after every three-month checkup.