My first diagnosis was stage IIIC breast cancer, which is as close as you can get to stage IV without actually being stage IV, which is terminal. At that point, IIIC, you’re still considered curable. My oncologist told me that I had triple-negative breast cancer, which can be more aggressive and more difficult to treat…
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Lumps get all the attention. As they should: A new lump or mass is the most common symptom of breast cancer. But there are other explanations for lumpy breasts—and other breast cancer symptoms you should know about. Many women have lumpy or uneven breasts. And even if yours are as uniform as Hostess cupcakes, they…
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Don’t wait to start self-exams and mammograms. “You’re never too young to start self-exams, and you should go for an annual mammogram as soon as possible, certainly by 40, but earlier if you have a history of breast cancer in your family,” says Tami. Be your own advocate on the latter; controversially, the American Cancer…
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Staring at my ever-growing to-do list, I contemplated canceling—or at least postponing—the appointment for my annual mammogram. Next month, I reasoned, things would be a little less hectic. Why not save myself some stress? Like most, I have a fear of cancer. In 1999, I lost my 37-year-old husband in a fast battle with Hodgkin’s…
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Each year, an estimated 330,500 women (and 2,670 men) in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer. But many more women are living with the knowledge that they are a carrier for what is commonly known as the “breast cancer gene.” Technically “breast cancer gene” refers to a mutation in one of two…
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As a nurse, Jessica Moore knew her injury should be healing more quickly. A varsity girls’ basketball coach, she’d gotten elbowed in the breast while playing the game one day, and the resulting pain kept lingering. After she visited doctors to get checked out, she found out she had metastatic breast cancer (MBC)—meaning the disease…
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