Cancer awareness blogs

You’re Never Too Young

By Sheryl
February 12, 2010

It’s not very often that we’re able to share our good – or especially bad – experiences with the masses. Sometimes we have to keep them to ourselves – and that can be isolating and just plain depressing.

That’s what happened to me 21 years ago when I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 34. I was young, yes, but also felt – and was – very much alone. It just wasn’t all that common in younger women, after all.

But it’s way different today: the facts on the Young Survivor Coalition website show this to be so:

Young women can and do get breast cancer. While breast cancer in young women accounts for a small percentage of all breast cancer cases, the impact of this disease is widespread: There are more than 250,000 women living in the U.S. who were diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 40 or under, and approximately 10,000 young women will be diagnosed in the next year.

My very unexpected diagnosis was made on my very first mammogram, a baseline ordered by a surgeon I had visited repeatedly for various lumps on my breasts. In the past he had dismissed them as “hormonal changes,” but this time was different. He seemed nonplussed by this latest lump, but suggested anyway that since the age (at that time) for a baseline mammogram was 35, I might as well have one. Months later — I had dragged my feet, thinking it unthinkable that anything might be amiss — I went for my mammogram, in the same way I would go for my bi-annual dentist appointment: with no emotion other than to get it over with.

One image followed another. Clearer angles had to be taken. My breasts were compressed so much that numbness set in. A suspicious image was confirmed. “But don’t worry, most of the time, it’s nothing. In fact, 80 percent of the time, it’s nothing.” Those words that were intended to put me at ease turned out to be untrue this time — my time.

Breast cancer would change my life in so many ways. And it’s wonderful to have the ability and opportunity to share just how much I’ve learned and just how far I’ve come.

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