Why I Get Mammograms

Fifteen years ago a mammogram found a lump in my right breast, which was biopsied and removed and turned out to be benign. That experience, plus a few insensitive mammogram techs, turned me against mammograms. I thought I was put through a lot of surgery and anxiety for nothing and I really hated the unfriendly staff in many of the hospitals I visited. Also, I'd read somewhere the cultures in which women didn't wear bras had a very low rate of breast cancer, and as I'd rarely worn a bra in my life, I thought I was safe. I really never thought I'd get breast cancer. Not me. So I got a mammogram maybe ever three years.

It had been at least three years since my last mammogram when I found the most recent lump, massaging what I thought was a sore muscle after lifting weights. I went immediately for a mammogram. The lump I found turned out to be benign, but the mammogram also showed second lump that I hadn't found, in the same breast, which was invasive breast cancer. I was lucky that I found the first one in a self-exam, because as a result the cancerous tumor was found early, before it reached the lymph nodes. So I get mammograms now, although for me, I think that a careful self-exam is probably even more important.

Find out more about Mary Blocksma on her Web site. Read her full breast cancer story, from diagnosis through radiation, on her breast cancer page.