I'm 28 years old and I lost my Mom to Breast Cancer over 12 years ago. She was diagnosed at the age of 36 after having been told that she is "too young" to have Breast Cancer and the lump in her breast was "too small" to be Breast Cancer. Fortunately for her, she found a wonderful surgeon who agreed to do a biopsy and ultimately was diagnosed with Breast Cancer.
She underwent a lumpectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation. She was declared to be in remission, but that was short lived. A year later, she was told that the cancer had spread. She tried more chemo and when she exhausted the options at our local hospital in Poughkeepsie, NY, she went to UMass/Memorial Hospital in Worcester, MA and Dana Farber Cancer Center in Boston, MA.
Nearly four years after she was diagnosed, she died on December 23, 1996 at the age of 39.
Each day, she is at the forefront of my thoughts and I can only hope that I am living life with a fraction of the grace that she carried throughout her entire life, for I know that I will never be able to live up to the same spirit that she did.
In addition, I take her life as an example, especially in regard to Breast Cancer. There isn't any such thing as being too young for Breast Cancer. As a result, from the age of 25 on, I have been getting yearly mammograms and have had the BRCA test done. It is unfortunate that this is a worry in my life at the age of 28, but I'd rather catch it early and beat it... and we all know it can happen to women of any age.
West Boylston, MA