I am a Lab Tech. I know about diagnosing diseases. Other people get sick with serious illnesses and I help find diagnoses, I DON'T GET diagnosed. I hadn't had a mammogram in a couple of years. Breast cancer didn't run in my family and there were no changes in the girls, so I was ok with skipping them.
I had been laid off from my job and was drawing unemployment and had no insurance. So one day, I called the local health department to see if they had any programs for women. They did and had me to come in for check ups. The Nurse Practitioner that I saw did the PAP smear and then did a breast exam. She felt a small pea sized lump in the right breast and referred me for a mammo. The lump had been there for many years and I had actually had a mammo because of it some years earlier. So I wasn't worried.
I went over to the imaging center and checked in. I went back and got undressed and went and sat in the waiting room with the other ladies. They came and went, unless there was something that showed up on their mammo. Then they had to have more shots taken. Then my turn came. I mindlessly went through the process; no problem. THEN...I went back to the waiting room only to be one of those that needed repeats. The Mammo Tech knew I was a Lab Tech and allowed me to see why I was held for repeats. There it was, it looked like little salt granules all over the base of my left breast, not the right one, just beyond the chest wall. No lumps. Ductal cell carcinoma. By the time it was large enough to feel lumps, it would have been too late.
Exactly one week before Christmas 2012, I had a double mastectomy. Praise God that it hadn't made it to my lymph nodes so I didn't have to take chemo or radiation. The ONLY symptom I had was an extremely sore chest.
GET YOUR MAMMOGRAM!!
Somerset, KY
