‘ I DEMANDED’ A SAME- DAY MAMMOGRAM
Editor’s note: October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the Chicago Sun- Times invited breast cancer survivors to share their stories. We’ll share them throughout the month here and at suntimes. com.
My breast cancer journey started in October 2002. At the time, I was under the age of 40, and had not yet started having mammograms. I called my doctor’s office and spoke with a nurse reporting the fact that I felt a lump in my left breast. She asked me if I were menstruating and shrugged me off telling me that “it’s probably a hormone you’re feeling, call back next week.”
Well, I did better than that — I showed up at the doctor’s office, without an appointment, demanding to see a doctor. After trying to “convince” me that what I felt really was “nothing,” I told her that I would politely wait. After about an hour or so, she called me in and the doctor examined me, and I DEMANDED to be sent that very same day for a mammogram. He complied.
When I arrived at the breast center, I asked to speak with a radiologist after the mammogram. Because ofmy persistence, they also obliged my request. Needless to say, after a couple appointments, an ultrasound and needle biopsy, I was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer inmy left breast. The tumor lodged inmy breast was the size of an egg.
As a result of my cancer, I’ve had three surgeries, eight rounds of chemotherapy, six- and- a- half weeks of radiation therapy and participated in a clinical trial called Herceptin, that has been since regulated by the federal government. Yes, all under the age of 40 years old. It was time to get busy living!
I would be lying to you if I told you that fear never entered my mind. Cancer is a very scary word that comes with a lot of uncertainty. Like many other women there was no history of cancer in my family, yet I had been diagnosed.
If you look at the history of African- American women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, far more have died than other races. I was destined NOT to be a statistic and it comes down to simply NOT BEING SCREENED! All the effort is wasted of wearing the pink if you don’t get a mammogram.
Nov. 26, 2014, I will celebrate 12 years of being CANCER FREE! I’m proof positive. Survivorship is real!!!
Tracey M. Stills, Villa Park