In 1998, I had lost everything, including my job, my home, and my income and was living on savings. I had no health insurance, visited a free clinic, and was told I needed to have an annual mammogram. They could not provide it, but a flyer on the bulletin board there gave a number to call for a free mammogram. I called, and had my free mammogram in a small office of the local senior center, on portable equipment. That was the luckiest day of my life!
I am deaf, and I received no follow-up calls on the mammogram for some time, due to the difficulty in reaching me on my TTY telephone. However, one woman in the program would not give up and finally reached me and told me my mammogram was suspicious. I was referred to another free clinic, got x-rays, and was referred to a physician in the program. He did an in-hospital biopsy and invasive ductal carcinoma was found in my right breast (there was no lump.) About this same time, I was able to get on California MediCal/SSDI (individual pays a percentage of medical costs), and I went ahead and had a right mastectomy about a week after the biopsy, in early 1999. In 2000, the same physician did a left mastectomy to ease my mind about subsequent cancer. I was on Tamoxifen therapy until 2004, feel great, am now back with my former HMO, on Medicare, and am considering breast reconstruction at age 67!
That free mammogram saved my life, as the cancer would have been undetected otherwise, and would have silently invaded other areas of my body. I urge you to give other women the same wonderful chance I had. PLEASE CLICK ON THIS SITE DAILY AT LEAST ONCE!
Lancaster, CA
