Geek Girl Featured on Cancer Free Radio
Geek Girl is a tech nerd & breast cancer survivor. Cancer Free Radio is featuring me so I want to tell you my story with the hope that it will help and encourage you or someone you know. There is also a link on CancerFree123 that will lead you to their main site. Please Tweet it and share it and help spread the word.
And now the story behind the reason I am being featured on Cancer Free Radio…
When I was just 32 years old I was diagnosed with breast cancer. That alone is not remarkable. How it happened is something worth noting.
I had just had a mammogram and it was fine. Nothing showed up. My family history is full of breast cancer and death as a result of it. I swore I would not let that happen to me. Not only do I get regular mammograms, but I do a self check regularly. It was just weeks after my mammogram and the ‘all clear’ when I found the lump. So I immediately made an appointment to get it checked out. The radiologist I saw told me that I was too young for it to be cancer. I will not tell you what I think of him. I went on to see a surgeon who did a biopsy. It was cancer and it had already begun to attach itself to the muscle beneath it. Given my family history I chose to have a modified radical mastectomy.
My oncologist told me that the cancer was so small and because I had chosen the treatment I did, no further treatment was necessary.
That was more than 20 years ago and I am still clear today! The moral of the story? You need to be your own health advocate. Be that empowered patient. Absolutely get your mammogram, but do the monthly checks. It could save your life. It saved mine. Listen to your own intuition. If you ‘know’ that something is not right, follow up on it even if they have already told you there is no need to. God bless our health professionals, but they are not perfect.
Today I tell my story whenever I get the chance. It could save someone’s life so I do it willingly. I hope that you take your health seriously and become an empowered patient.
Do you have a story about being an empowered patient? I would love to hear about it.
Filed in: Blogging
Super Cheryl!! So pleased for you and hope it stays that way.
"You need to be your own health advocate is", as you say, and that's absolutely essential.
Take care of yourself, exercise, eat healthy food, sleep enough, take the supplements you need and so forth.
Frequently look at what people at supermarkets have in their trolleys. Often wonder how they can eat the junk they buy. Love cakes and all kinds of unhealthy things but combine it with a lot of vegetables & fruit, beans and other healthy food.
No wonder people eating only junk food become obese. As we all know, being overweight is as bad as smoking – and obese is much worse than overweight:-)
It seems these days that people expect someone else to be responsible for their health. It's your body and you're responsible for caring for it. If I had listened to the first person who told me not to worry, I would not be here today.
I agree with you. I like cakes and such things as much as the next person, but they have to be kept in moderation.
Like you, breast cancer runs in my family. I have regular checkups and do the things that are suggested and required to help prevent or catch any issue early on. My Mom didn't do that. In fact she ignored all the sighs that she had advance stages of breast cancer. This resulted in a radical mastectomy with nine month of kimotheraphy. It was a horrible time for her and our family. Miraculously she survived. She was extraordinarily lucky, but at a price.
I am so glad it did not take her life. So many do not heed the signs or they ignore them and hide their heads in the sand. Nothing is as bad as it seems if you face it head on rather than just thinking about it. At least it works that way for me. 🙂
Wow – your story's a real eye-opener. Okay…more like a slap in the face. I lost my sister to Leukemia 13 years ago because she bought into all that hype that women overreact to their health symptoms. Thank goodness for survivors like you who remind us to take our "intuition" seriously.
I am so sorry about your sister. I tell my story in hopes that we can prevent another death.