High Tea a ‘lifesaver’ for local cancer victim

BELLAIRE – A bout with thyroid cancer at the young age of 26 was the first time that Pat Dehnke dealt with the realities of a destructive, and potentially deadly, disease.

But it was another 25 years, and another bout with cancer – this time breast cancer – before the Bellaire resident felt that someone besides her immediate family and friends, really cared about her and the battle she was fighting.

"In 2011, after we had moved up north, I was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time," Dehnke recalled. "Having already gone through breast cancer and the resulting full mastectomy on my other breast in 2000, the news the cancer had returned was devastating.

"At that point, with the return of what I hoped I would never have to deal with again, I figured I would just have to give up and die," she said.

But someone at the Smith Breast Center in Traverse City, where she was diagnosed, gave her a business card and encouraged her to make a phone call. 

She did.

"That was the first time I talked to Dee Lynch of the Antrim County High Tea," Dehnke said. "That phone call changed my life."

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