Are your breasts dense? What’s inside this 38 DDD?
This bra, that I decorated myself after a trip to Michaels, helps remind me that you can’t always tell by looking what’s inside with just a mammogram. And, likewise a clinical exam or self breast exam may miss an early breast cancer.
Finding breast cancer as early as possible
As a clinician, I worry about missing an early breast cancer that could be lurking within or may be too difficult to see on a mammogram. Don’t get me wrong, mammograms are the First and Best step for breast cancer screening and yet, there are times when we must look differently and go beyond so that we find breast cancer as early as possible. (more…)
Why this is important
I was talking to 2 friends the other day, who both had double mastectomies for advanced breast cancer. Kim and Ellen (not their real names) had complete reconstruction and neither one had been able to save their nipples.
They were both talking about how difficult it is to have one nipple that’s horizontal and points straight ahead like a headlight, and the other that’s off in it’s own direction, like a wandering and wayward child.
From the National Non-Profit Project Pink Comes a Story of Love, Liberation and Laughter:
The Breast Cancer Diaries
For ten years, Ann Murray Paige covered the news, but for the biggest story of her life she turned the camera on herself. When Ann, a former local news reporter and anchor is diagnosed with breast cancer at age 38, she sets up a diary camera in her bedroom.
“She’s Positive. She’s Positive Not”
Waiting for the Answer by Rachel Pappas
After I was diagnosed with breast cancer in September 2009, I called my mother and talked her into going in for a mammogram. Cancer ran rampant in our family. Though it was mainly on my father’s side, I of course worried for her.A few weeks later came her call. My mother had breast cancer too. Her bad news had me petrified that I was positive for the BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 gene mutation that almost guarantees you will get breast or ovarian cancer. What if I passed this gene to my daughter and she ended up with the same fate as my mother and myself? (more…)
