My mother's breast cancer was not found by mamography. Neither of my sister's breast cancer were either. But mine was. I've been having them every year anyway and last fall they said they wanted another view of the right breast, So I went and they said they thought it was ok but to come back in 6 months for another mamogram. Life was busy, I was rehearsing for a play and I probably would have forgotten, but Kaiser didn't -- they sent me a reminder and so I called and made the appointment, This time they wanted a ultrasound. Then a biopsy and then the week before the play opened I got the results--cancer. I said no surgery until after the play (it was only one weekend and it was way too late to find a replacement!
The lumpectomy came a week after the play and the great news was no lymph node involvement, the bad was they didn't have clean margins so we had to do it again. Three weeks later they went back in to get a little more and found a few more cancer cells but with clean margins this time! Soon I will have the radiation which I'm not looking forward to, but I know I can do it with the support of my wonderful husband, daughter, sister and friends. I now push women I know to have their mamograms and thank God every day for every day!
Inglewood, CA