A FIGHTING CHANC

She’s a doctor herself

Dr. Alexea Gaffney was shocked when, last month, neither a mammogram nor an ultrasound revealed a “huge, 9-centimeter tumor” growing in her breast, which turned out to be stage 3 cancer.

“There’s nothing to explain why this thing got missed,” says Gaffney, 37, who practices internal medicine on Long Island. “All I know is that mammograms and ultrasounds can miss cancer.” Gaffney had been vigilant, too. Due to an abnormal cell-growth condition discovered a few years ago, she was considered higher risk. Plus, black women are statistically more likely to die from breast cancer, and have cancer show up at a later stage. With that information in mind, she and her primarycare doctor stayed on top of tests. She got MRIs and mammograms paired with ultrasounds every six months.

The extra care often meant her schedule could be completely disrupted by a suspicious screening — whole days’ worth of appointments would often have to be moved, just so she could get poked and prodded “like a pincushion” for biopsies, says the mother of one.

But even though her cancer is stage 3, she knows it could have been worse if she hadn’t prioritized these tests.

“I’m living out all these things I preach to my patients: taking action, not being in denial,” says Gaffney, who started chemotherapy earlier this month. “For me, it wasn’t OK to wait until my schedule was more open. Days make a difference.”