I'd been having annual mammograms and check-ups, with periodic biopsies of what turned out to be benign cysts, for almost 25 years. In 2006, when I was 54, they saw calcifications in several areas of my non-cystic breast ... what looked like grains of sand on the mammogram. This biopsy came back positive, with a Grade 3 cancer in small but multiple locations. Because of the aggressive type and diffuse nature of the cancer, I had a mastectomy and 4 months of "heavy duty" chemo, followed by 10 months of Herceptin and at least 5 years of Arimidex. I'm now feeling great and consider the remaining treatments to be merely insurance against recurrence. I'm convinced, however, that missing my annual mammogram would literally have been a fatal mistake. Though the cancer was defined as stage 0-1, found before a tumor was even big enough to measure (and the surgeon couldn't feel anything despite knowing exactly where it was), it was such a fast-growing type that it probably would have both solidified and metastasized by the next year's exam. So now I remind everyone I know to get their annual mammograms whether they find a lump or not!

Anonymous
Cincinnati, OH