My mom had breast cancer when I was about 7 years old. She went in for a mammogram with a friend who was getting hers and was nervous. She came out with a breast cancer diagnosis. I can still see her face when she walked out of the doctor's office. She ended up having a radical mastectomy but never had chemo or radiation treatments. I was always told by my doctors not to worry about it, that her breast cancer did not increase my risk for the disease (not true!). When I hit 40 I knew it was time to start having mammograms but I ended up putting it off because I was too busy. Finally in 2008 at the age of 41 a little voice started nagging me that it was time to go get my baseline mammogram done. I went from first mammogram to biopsy, to breast cancer diagnosis all in the same day. My mom's birthday, no less. Over the next 18 months I had a lumpectomy, 6 rounds of chemotherapy and 6 weeks of radiation treatments along with a full year of Herceptin therapy. I am very fortunate that my cancer was node negative and had not spread but if I could say one thing it would be please don't put off that mammogram. If you have a history of breast cancer in your family at all, insist that your doctor begin yours at an earlier age. If my mom hadn't gone for her first mammogram as "moral support" for a friend getting hers, she might not be celebrating her 90th birthday this March. They really do save lives.

Alyson
Issaquah, WA