The Women's Health Speaker Class was on breast cancer, a topic that has probably affected most families. Dr Troy Duininck, who gave an overview of cancer, stated that one in eight women get breast cancer and in 2007 there were 178,480 new breast cancer cases that were diagnosed. He said that in Minnesota there were about 3000 new cases and that Brainerd St Joseph's hospital had 72. Duininck also said that 85-90% of breast cancer cases are not hereditary.
In my family my Grandmother, aunt and sister all had breast cancer. Doctors recommend that women have a mammogram every year starting at age 40 and I do. The Brainerd hospital now has available a breast specific gamma imaging machine that will give doctors a better look at the cancerous cells to better assist their patients. I got the opportunity to be screened by the machine this year as a tumor that was on watch mode after a core biopsy last year persisted and was joined by several others.
I was injected with radioactive dye by IV and then the rest of the procedure was much like a very slow mammogram - very slow - hours! My tumors are not cancerous right now and it was worth it to know that much, rather than keep "watch" and wonder. My friends teased me that I would now glow in the dark - maybe I did just a bit!
photo by:kamirufiasco: Flickr
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