My breast cancer was discovered accidentally. I had a "clean" mammogram on May 31 of last year (2007). I ran the Casper Marathon on June 8, 2007. I was feeling myself all over the next day, thinking "Ow, everything still hurts," when I found a very small lump the size of a green pea in my left breast nearly under my arm. I immediately made an appointment with my physician, who decided to watch it a couple of months to see if it would go away on its own. When it was still present on July 23, we agreed I should have a diagnostic mammogram. Upon reading the mammogram, the radiologist said, "I can't see anything"... not anything as in "no cancer" but as in "diddlysquat...your breasts are too dense to read." She said I needed an ultrasound, which I then had and which clearly indicated on the screen, even to me, that something different was present. I returned two days later for a fine core biopsy and a research MRI for a clinical study. Results from the biopsy and the MRI indicated the presence of cancer. This experience has totally demolished my confidence in mammograms. I feel as though I have been brainwashed by the flood of propaganda about getting my yearly mammograms (which I have done every year for the past 19 years). This cancer had been present for an estimated five to six years, yet no mammogram or yearly physician's exam had detected it. My yearly mammogram report always said something to the effect that I have dense breasts that make the mammograms more difficult to interpret....but nowhere or at any time was I ever told that the physician could not see "anything" as in "diddlysquat," and that to be safe, I should have an MRI. My physician says that the insurance will not pay for such MRIs and that is why doctors don't recommend them. I would gladly have paid for the expense myself given the fact that breast cancer runs in my family. I will be fortunate to survive another four years now. Published: September 10 ::

I had absolutely no symptoms. I just went in for my annual mammogram. I am only 43 years old, but my maternal grandmother had invasive breast cancer, so I started getting regular mammograms at age 38. The radiologist found a group of calcifications, did a biopsy, and found it to be very early stage (zero) Ductal Carcinoma in Situ (DCIS). I just had the partial mastectomy, which was really more like a lumpectomy. The radiation therapy will start soon to lessen the chance of recurrence. Published: September 10 ::

Breast cancer was detected by the mammogram. I couldn't not feel it myself, and it was not detected by a breast exam by the doctor a couple of weeks before the mammogram. Published: November 02 ::

My breast cancer was diagnosed from a mammogram when I was 40 yrs. old. Calcifications showed up which they decided to biopsy. There was a small intraductal carcinoma insitu. It has been 16 yrs. since-cancer free. I chose to have a simple mastectomy with tram flap reconstruction. Published: October 12 ::