Don’t Let It Happen To You

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in October, 2008, I asked HOW COULD THIS HAVE  HAPPENED?  I had faithfully gotten my mammograms every year since turning 40.  I had my annual gynecological exams. I went to see a surgeon when I felt a lump. I was told everything was fine.  But when I had my first biopsy in September, 2008, and went to get the written pathology report at the nurse’s station, the nurse accidentally printed out all of the lab and x-ray reports I had at that facility for the past 2 years!  I told her that was okay, and that I had a long wait in the pharmacy so this would give me some “reading material”.  We laughed and I went on my way.

What I began to read was no laughing matter!  What I found was a mammogram report from 18 months prior (March, 2007) .  I had gone for a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound of an area where I could feel a lump.  The surgeon could feel the lump too.  In the report the radiologist wrote these words:

“An incidental mass found behind the areola, more pronounced on today’s images”.  …in other words,  a mass behind the nipple.  That is precisely where my first cancer (invasive ductal carcinoma) was discovered!  WHAT?  More pronounced??? More pronounced than WHEN??  Compared with my mammogram a year earlier? It never said. He then went on to say that he found nothing on imaging of the area where I felt the lump and that he was to examine.  His findings? Benign. Case closed. And so the clock ticked on and my cancer grew. 

If I had seen that report, those words would have alarmed me enough to pursue it further.  My referring doctor was never informed and I was never informed.  As I tell every woman I meet now…you must be your own health advocate. When you have your mammogram and they send you that letter in the mail saying to come back in a year, do not rest until you have the written transcribed report from your radiologist.  Doctors see so many reports and sadly some things slip through the cracks. It could be you. It was me.

On another note, that lump that I could feel?  That turned out to be infiltrating lobular cancer, found only with an MRI. Many young women have very dense breast tissue making it difficult to detect early cancer lesions.  If a mammogram technician or doctor ever tells you that you have dense breasts, don’t be dense!  Demand an MRI!  Especially if you have any changes or notice anything unusual about your breast. Two factors make you more susceptible to breast cancer than any other.

#1 is that you are a woman

#2 is that there are changes occurring in your breast.

That lump that I first went in for should have been a doctor’s first clue that something  wasn’t right.  The fact that it didn’t show up on mammogram or ultrasound should have been his second clue. It was indeed cancer.

Please.  When you have your next mammogram, ask when the written report will be available, and then go and physically get it for yourself.  Do not depend on them to mail it to you.  They rarely do this. But it is YOUR health record and you are entitled to it.   It could save your life, or at the very least, it could save your breast.