My story starts back in 1988. I was a freshman at the U of MN when my symptoms of "mono" started worsening into shortness of breath and itching in my joints. I'd scratch until I drew blood, I couldn't sleep unless I was upright because I felt like I was suffocating. By Christmas I'd had enough. I had a lump in my neck and demanded a biopsy. I was diagnosed with Stage 2b Hodgkins Lymphoma. What followed that diagnosis was five months of radiation therapy to my chest. Knowing that I was going to be high risk for breast cancer the rest of my life I had mammograms starting at age 30. All was good until 2011, that's when I switched doctors. By this time I was no longer following with an oncologist yearly since mine had moved on. She wanted me to go see an oncologist to make sure she hadn't missed anything. My mammogram was negative no signs of cancer. The oncologist suggested a breast MRI just to be safe because of the high doses of radiation. My MRI wasn't too concerning but there were areas that warrented further investigation. I had a MRI guided biopsy which showed hyperplasia. A further biopsy showed DCIS. They couldn't guarantee that the scatter seen on MRI wasn't cancer so I had a bilateral mastectomy with immediate reconstruction by DIEP flap on Oct 3 2011. Both breasts were full of cancer all in the earliest stage possible. I've had no further treatment other than the surgery. I count myself very lucky...I've survived cancer twice. I feel mammography is a very useful tool, however, in my case a breast MRI was much more useful.

Heidi Christensen
ironton, MN