Put out the word to young women...have the lump checked early. It can be deadly

I just lost my beautiful 38 year old daughter to breast cancer that was preventable.  When she was 25 and about to get married, she told me she went for a checkup (her first) to get birth control pills.  Her doctor would not prescribe birth control but instead referred her to a surgeon.  Seems she had a breast lump from about age 16 and it had grown to golf ball size.  She never told her father and me back when she was 16 because she knew that we would make her go and have it checked.  She was very modest and avoided doctors.  Anyway, the surgeon thought that it was just a cyst but recommended that she have it removed because it could turn into cancer.  She chose not to follow his advice.  about 9 years later, guess what?  Cancer! Doctor's thought that it was confined to the breast since it showed no signs of being in the nodes.  They didn't do a PET scan at that time but I don't know why.  She chose to have a lumpectomy but her doctor wanted her to have a mastectomy with radiation and chemo...she didn't do that.  I believe that at that time the cancer had already spread because just a few months later it had matasticized to her bones and it was really bad.  The cancer was being fed by her hormones so all there was left to do then was to hold it off for awhile with Tamoxaphen and others drugs.  Wish I had some way to reach High School and college students about not procrastinating when there is a lump.  She was a beautiful young woman with two small children and a husband. 

That message can never be told often enough. Breast cancer does not often show up in the teens, but it can. Any difference in the feel of the breast should be evaluated by a doctor and lumps should be biopsied always. That is the only way to tell whether cancer is present or not. Pregnancy fuels breast cancer. My daughter was diagnosed at age 39, had a mastectomy and all seemed fine for eight years, then recurrance. It settled into her bone marrow which is nasty. Her onc put her on one chemo and after a year decided it really wasn't doing the job, so he put her on a new chemo drug she gets weekly for three weeks with one week off, then another drug is mixed in once a month. Lo and behold her last bone marrow test was clear!!!He is keeping her on the chemo because there is no known result and the fear is that it could come back even more aggressively. So this mother is very grateful for the advances that are being made in treatment. I am so sorry you lost your daughter. I always advocate young and old women have annual check ups. Hugs MK