This is a PSA. Brace yourselves. As some of you probably know, my mother died of breast cancer at a relatively young age. She saw a bruise on her breast that refused to heal and then she waited for months to go to the doctor, because that’s the way my mother did things. It took her 18 months to die. Today I went for my second ever mammogram. Mammograms are very stressful for me, because I have to relive my mother’s death and because I’m always afraid that they may find something. To top it off, they don’t tell you results until a week later. However, having a mammogram is still one of the best ways to detect breast cancer, and I can’t help but think that if my mother had gone to the doctor when she first noticed something odd, my children would still have a grandmother. So this is a gentle reminder: if you are a woman over the age of 40, most insurance plans cover an annual mammogram, so if you’ve been putting yours off, please make an appointment. It’s important.
It is a Christmas present for myself.
Don’t forget- if your insurance won’t cover cancer screenings, talk to your local Planned Parenthood. At the very least, they can evaluate anything you discover on a self exam and refer you to programs that can help with medical screenings and treatment.
(My grandmother died of ovarian cancer. My mother and I both went through genetics testing and get routine exams for both breast and ovarian cancer even though we tested negative.)
My sister had a stage one cancer detected last fall. The biopsy got almost all of it, so after a lumpectomy no radiation or chemo required. She would never have detected this on her own. So yes, everyone, go for that mammogram! And switch to a deodorant with no aluminium… They can be stressful, and painful, and there may be a false-positive result. But I would rather endure these than the alternative.
Ilona, I am so sorry for your loss and your yearly stress of having the tests. Good for you and thank you for reminding all of us. The best thing to know is that breast cancer doesn’t necessarily present with pain, bruises or other problems until it is already too late. That is why annual exams are so important when you reach that golden age of 40. If they find a problem before you are showing any health issues, you have a better chance of a complete and total recovery. Also, monthly self-exams are good to do. Even for men. Yes, men DO get breast cancer, so encourage the men in your life to keep an eye on their own boobies! We don’t want to lose them either!
My mother was 69 when she had bleeding from a nipple, she ummmed and ahhhed about going to the GP. She did go, was sent to hospital and they found early signs of cancer. she was operated on within the week and then had follow up radiotherapy.
Mother lived until she was 86 .She died from respiratory failure , not cancer although she did have lymphoedema.
I always go, for my check ups after a row with my local NHS who said I had not turned up, when I had rung for an appointment change.
Silence greeted my comment of ” my mother had breast cancer of course I want a scan ! ” I had an appointment within 2 weeks .
My sympathies for your loss Ilona,
Thank you, Ilona and Gordon, for your PSA. My mother died of breast cancer at 63, when I was 32 and my brother only 26. She did not ignore the symptoms but hey– not everyone who gets treatment is successful, especially back in the 1990s. I’m in a higher risk category and have had a mammogram every year since I turned 35 (the guidelines keep changing, but having my boobs smashed every year for an uncomfortable 10 minutes is so WORTH it… like others I’ve had my share of scares and cyst biopsies but these, too, are worth it.) The state of the art right now is alternating breast MRI with mammograms, for those in higher risk categories….May I also add a plug for women to also get periodic pap smears? These are SO important for monitoring for ovarian and cervical cancer, which are silent killers even more so than breast because the tumors are much more hidden.
Best wishes and praise for your courage all of those who have written in!
Oh, seriously! Having sat in on a number of those Grand Rounds* pap smears have been flippin’ amazing in terms of keeping women from dying horrible death due to cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is super treatable if caught early. Get your pap smear – put in your vote for staying alive!
Also, the HPV vaccines are pretty awesome. I mean, seriously – can you even imagine, we have a vaccine, for cancer (sure it’s not perfect, but it’s a huge start) and people aren’t sure they should give it to their children? (I’ve thought we should point out that it also protects against testicular cancer – that may be a lot more rare, but it sidesteps the fear of female sexuality. Yeesh.)
* I’m a researcher, but I’m on a lot of mailing lists and will show up if the subject it interesting and I have time.
My beef tends to encourage people with chronic blood in urine to get a uroscopy since one of the four causes is cancer. My mom went misdiagnosed for four months with a UTI until she had an x-ray in that region which discovered an unidentified mass. Stage three by that time.
I feel for you, I truly do. My mother goes through the same thing every few years when she gets one. You can see how much pain and misery the memory causes her.
It wonderful of you to share something so private for such a good purpose.
I hope your results are good and continue to be so in the future. I do get a mammogram every year and after one scare I always can’t relax until my results show nothing out of the ordinary. But, I don’t have to wait a week and can view my results on My Chart as soon as they are posted, usually within a couple of days.
Right now I know six women who had been treated for breast cancer in varying stages and they are all past their five year mark, one or two way past it. I think treatment has advanced greatly over the years, but obviously not to the point where it can save everyone. So sorry about your mother.
I have been getting yearly mammograms since my 20s because I have fibrocystic tissue and get lumps all the time. I would often find some new little lump in self exams and get it checked – fortunately it was always just fluid-filled. With the new technology, the scans are instantly there. Although they can’t give you results until the doctor reviews it, it doesn’t hurt to ask to look at them and learn your ‘typical’ configuration. I often got the lumps in similar places and was able to see when the scans looked similar to previous years. Sometimes the tech could even show me the comparison to the previous scan right then.
Check out http://www.mammosphere.com/ and see if your provider is signed up to use the service.
It will give you access and secure storage of all of your mammography exams ever done. You can even upload the dicom disks you may have from other places.
My mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer at the age of 75 and died within three weeks of the diagnosis and operations because of severe complications. I told my colleagues that she hadn’t been to her annual gyn exams in decades, although these are covered by the german health insurance system. A colleague said, she hadn’t been either. My mom’s fate made her think and she went to the doctor. Thank God, because she got diagnosed with cervical cancer at a very much earlier and still treatable state. After a hard year of operation and treatments she is well and hopefully will be back in the job in spring.
Let me add to this: make sure your primary care provider gets copies of all of your tests and is aware of any history of cancer. Both of my parents died from cancer – my dad from an extremely rare form of liver cancer and my mother from ovarian cancer. This year during my annual “lets see how far we can insert a baseball bat into Kat” visit my provider noticed that the lining of my uterus was extremely thick and that there were some shadows he didn’t like. A D&C and exploratory surgery later I know I don’t have cancer BUT I will go back and have this again and again until I die.
Please, please, please have your 50,000 mile check up every year – schedule it for your birthday month. I always take the day off and get all of my exams done at once and then got out to lunch with a friend. It’s uncomfortable but it only takes a few minutes and then you can go back to your lives.
It’s that important.
My mom died from cancer last month. My grandma died from cancer when my mom was only 12. My dad died from cancer and his dad did too. Many aunts and uncles. It runs in the family. I take flax seed every day. Also (although I haven’t been doing so lately with my stressful home life) I had been fasting weekly for a couple years. Fasting has been shown to decrease many health risks including the incidence of cancer. Easiest way for me to fast is 6pm till 6pm the next day. It takes a bit of willpower but I found it has more than just health benefits.
Just want to add my two cents –
Mammogram – does not hurt – some pressure but that’s it – over within 15 minutes. (recently had one and a lump was discovered)
Ultrasound – painless – takes about 10 minutes – was done to make sure there was indeed a lump
Biopsy – stressful because I never had anything like that done before, but practically painless (not joking). Took about 25 minutes – wasn’t even sore the next day although they had to go fairly deep to take 3 pieces of the lump.
In other words, no excuses. All three tests (providing a lump is found) takes less than an hour. Fortunately my lump was just a fatty tissue, but if it had been cancerous, they told me it was so small, it would have been Stage 1 – totally curable – because I keep up with them.
Get your annual screenings done for breast and cervical cancer. Get your 5 year screenings done for colon cancer. You will be glad you did.
As more and more providers go digital, ask for your dicom images on a cd/dvd to keep for your records or reference after the exam. If you ask the tech as you go into the room, they may burn one for you right there. For this exam, it’s important to have the priors to look for changes, so get them every time.
Also ask your provider if they are in the Mammosphere network and if you can have an account. http://www.mammosphere.com/
It’s an online place to store your mammo images and reports.
I work in medical imaging and these are great resources people should know more about.