I found a lump, actually several, while shoveling snow on a winter morning in February 2019. I immediately called my primary doctor and scheduled an appointment. She, too, felt the lumps and ordered a mammogram. I had a mammogram and ultrasound just days later. The conclusion after taking additional images of suspicious areas was DENSE BREAST TISSUE.
The lumps grew over the next 2.5 years, and my breasts became more uncomfortable and painful. I stood in front of my mirror, examining my breasts countless times with the breast cancer symptoms checklist pulled up on my phone. I didn’t have discharge coming from my nipples or indentations. “It must just be DENSE BREAST TISSUE.” I thought
This past November, I asked my primary to do another breast exam during a routine physical. She did and concluded that it was just DENSE BREAST TISSUE. I sighed heavily at her response, knowing that she was wrong. She agreed to order another mammogram to put my mind at ease.
Six weeks later, I had the mammogram and ultrasound that was supposed to put my mind at ease, only I was right. I had been right all along. I had breast cancer. I was biopsied on site that very day.
I have Stage III, triple-positive breast cancer (HER2, Estrogen, and Progesterone). I finished six rounds of harsh chemotherapy on April 26th. I had a bilateral mastectomy with complete left axillary dissection yesterday, May 19th. I will have to wait on the results of the pathology to come back, but at minimum, I will need one year of HER2 targeted chemo, radiation, and hormone therapy.
I have no family history of breast cancer or any cancer, have led a healthy lifestyle, and breastfed my children for 3.5 years. As you know, cancer can happen to anyone.
Advocacy
This issue of DENSE BREAST TISSUE is complex for several reasons. 1. If you have DENSE BREAST TISSUE, mammograms and ultrasounds are NOT as effective in detecting cancer in the early stages. DENSE BREAST TISSUE and cancer look the same on mammograms and ultrasounds. 2. If you have DENSE BREAST TISSUE, you are 2-4X more likely to develop breast cancer.
I have a medical journalist who has been helping me with research around dense breast tissue and cancer. To summarize the findings and best practices would be:
If you have DENSE BREAST TISSUE and YOU detect a change in your breast(s), you need to have a BREAST MRI and/or tomosynthesis. If the results are clear, follow-up needs to occur every six months.
If I had follow-up six months after my initial mammogram in February 2019 with a BREAST MRI, the cancer would have been detected earlier, and I likely would have had less invasive treatments and shorter in duration.
If I had listened to my primary doctor and continued to let the diagnosis of DENSE BREAST TISSUE stand, this likely would have been a death sentence as several lymph nodes had cancer in them, and it was only a matter of time before it set up shop somewhere else in my body.