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Sunday, October 2, 2016
thePOWER
PINK O CTO B E R 2 , 2 01 6 | VO L . 7
Pink ribbons? o last year. So last decade. The breast cancer warriors at Susan B. Komen for the Cure are asking supporters to go beyond the ribbon. “Everyone knows that a pink ribbon denotes breast cancer,” said Sharon Laderberg, executive director of Susan G. Komen Tidewater. “Now we’re asking people to be More Than Pink, to go into action, whether volunteering, donating, holding events and something as simple as registering to run.” The group’s biggest fundraiser, the 5K Race for the Cure, will be held Oct. 15, starting on the Virginia Beach Boardwalk at Neptune’s Park (31st Street). In fact, Komen has launched three projects. Besides More Than Pink, the organization developed the Komen African-American Health Equity Initiative – a $27-million plan to reduce breast cancer in the African-American community – and a Bold Goal – reducing breast cancer by half in 10 years. “This year, there were 40,250 deaths, women and men, from breast cancer,” Laderberg said. “In our area, 29 people are diagnosed with breast cancer weekly and 5 (actually 4.7) die every week. It would be amazing to see that figure cut in half.” The Health Equity Initiative aims at reducing the disparity in care and funding
between white and African-American patients. “African-American women have a 44 percent higher chance of dying of breast cancer in our area than white women,” Laderberg said. “Tidewater (which includes everything from the Eastern Shore to upper North Carolina, stretching to Franklin and Surry County) is Number 4 in the country, in terms of the highest disparity. We have more deaths than Baltimore, more deaths than Detroit. “We have a lot to do.” Rural African-American households, on average, have lower household incomes, creating problems in transportation to screenings, follow-up and treatment. They often live in a more isolated area, farther from the health centers. Laderberg said there is cultural block, that some believe “it is not acceptable to have a mastectomy.” In addition, young African-American women are more likely to develop the fast-spreading triple negative cancer. “We are looking at all those avenues,” Laderberg said. To be More Than Pink, Laderberg suggests people volunteer to work at health fairs, or in the Komen office, attend fundraisers including the Admiral’s hockey event, Pink in the Rink, or the Pinko De Mayo ball and sign on to be a
Board Member. Since the race began in 1999, Komen Tidewater has raised $5.5 million. Of those funds, Laderberg said, 25 percent has been earmarked for breast cancer research. The rest stays in the area, given as grants to provide education, screenings, patient care and treatment. None of the money raised locally, Laderberg said, goes to the national office. Last year, Komen Tidewater received 1,600 requests for mammograms. Komen has already made a difference, Laderberg said. When the organization began in 1982, the survival rate was 74.14 percent. With a focus on early detection, medications and technology, the survival rate for those in the early stages is now 98.9 percent. While metastatic cancer – in which the cancer has spread to other parts of the body – used to be a death sentence. But with improved screening and treatment, Laderberg said, patients are “Not just survivors, but thrivers.” The Komen team believes the new initiatives will create many more thrivers. “Our mission has always been to save lives,” Laderberg said. “Now we have an achievable goal.”
The Big Pink
Saturday, October 15 ~ Event opens at 6:30 a.m.; timed 5K begins at 7:30, non-timed walk/run begins at 8:30 a.m. Neptune’s Park, 31st Street on the Virginia Beach Oceanfront Parking is available at city lots on Atlantic Avenue at 30th and 19th streets; Race is held rain or shine Contact: 757-490- 7794; komentidewater.org
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CONTRIBUTORS
Special Thanks to our pOWER OF PINK SECTION sponsors
Susan G. Komen for the Cure Tidewater Affiliate Executive Director Sharon K. Laderberg
~ P L AT I N U M ~
SECTION COORDINATORS Sara Anderson Marianne Walker CREATIVE DIRECTOR Janet Clouser PHOTOGRAPHER Bob Allen WRITER Roberta Vowell PAGE DESIGN Carlos Coleman
~ GOLD ~
HAMPTONROADS.COM
S
Who is Susan G. Komen?
usan G. Komen – Suzy to her friends and family in her Peoria, Ill., hometown – was an active and healthy 33-year-old when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. A former homecoming queen and model, she was bright and open, and shared the story of her fight willingly. She and her sister, Nan Goodman Brinker, made a pact to fund research and raise awareness of breast cancer. Susan Komen died at 36, but Brinker kept her promise, launching a foundation named for her sister in 1982. Susan G. Komen for the Cure has become the world’s largest non-profit source of funding for medical research and services ($2.6 billion to date) and a steady support for women and men battling breast cancer.
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Sunday, October 2, 2016
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Sunday, October 2, 2016
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was there, inside me.�
“But the worst thing was knowing the sickness
e’d been moving furniture in the house he and his wife, Linda, had bought in Elizabeth City. Or maybe he’d bumped
Linda, he said was his support system. She
himself out on the Coast Guard ship, working at
made him record “Fight Song,â€? the deďŹ ant pop hit
his job with Homeland Security.
that seems to be on the radio every ďŹ ve minutes:
“I’m getting clumsier as I get older,� Steiner said.
“This is my ďŹ ght song/Take back my life songâ€?
No such luck.
“It became our ďŹ ght song,â€? Steiner said.
“My doctor felt that lump and said, ‘Oooh, we’re
“My husband and I decided to treat this as a
scheduling you for a biopsy,’’’ Steiner said. And there’s more: the scan revealed a tumor on his left breast, and a tumor in his lungs.
bump in the road on our journey,� Linda wrote in an essay nominating him for the Power of Pink, “and surprisingly everything seemed to fall into
“My wife lost it when she heard the diagnosis,�
place and the road smoothed out. My husband
Steiner said. “She had to leave the doctor’s ofďŹ ce.â€?
became a pillar of strength and surfaced again as
First, there was surgery for the lung cancer.
the remarkable person I knew him to be.�
The breast cancer was tougher: ďŹ ve weeks of
They got through it. On a recent weekend,
radiation, a half-hour every day, six chemotherapy
they went to Home Depot and bought blocks and
sessions.
gravel to level the oor of a building they think
Steiner was in the military for 20 years, and
was an old stable. “She jumped me when I picked up the
served in Vietnam. He spent 8 years as a state trooper and 17 in Homeland Security. Breast cancer, he said, just might have been
blocks,� Steiner said with a laugh. “She told me I shouldn’t lift that.� Breast cancer in men is pretty rare. “I have
tougher than all that. “The after-effects of chemo, I thought it would
a very good friend,� Steiner said. “She’s doing a
be easier,� he said. “I fought as much as possible.
2-day cancer run/walk, and she has a T-shirt with
Nausea, diarrhea, lost my hair, lost the sense of
the names of everyone she knows who has been
taste, lost the sense of smell. Two of my teeth
touched by cancer. She said mine was the ďŹ rst
let loose, I had two root canals. My body odor
male name on there.�
changed; it was atrocious.� “We’d just bought a house in Elizabeth City, it’s a 1922 house and there’s so many things around the place that are still not done.
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Sunday, October 2, 2016
ANGE
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“I
looked at things differently with each diagnosis,” said Duke, a Chesapeake resident and community health organizer for Sentara Norfolk. “All the reoccurrences have led me to do what I do. I have been there and I have the scars to prove it.” “It truly revealed my purpose in life.” It is both her job and obligation to go educate people about cancer, the risk factors and the importance of screening. “It has helped me, and placed me in a place where I can help people and encourage them all the same time. I am talking with people who are filled with fear, and they need someone who can talk from a place of authority.” Duke was first diagnosed at age 26. She had a recurrence 12 years later, and again 7 years after that. She had three mastectomies. First one breast, then the other, and then it came back in the first. “People ask when I am going to be normal,” Duke said in low, calm voice. “I am never going to be normal. I am reminded no two people came through the same. This is my journey, and you will have your own. I am reminded of that every day in the shower.” Her most important advice for those facing
breast cancer: seek a strong support system. “There’ll be days you need someone to lean on,” she said. “You need a second pair of ears. You will be in a state of shock. You won’t catch things the doctor says to you, and if you do, you won’t remember them. People with no support system, they feel isolated.” “Everyone wants to put on a façade, that they can do it alone. You need someone to see how you are, instead of how you think you are, how you are handling things both inside and outside.” “Ask people for specific things,” she said. “Seek out counseling.” “Allow people to experience their own cancer,” she said. “There will be a time when you’ll think, ‘Can I just breathe? Can I just breathe out the fear?’ The cheerleaders mean well, but sometimes you have to tune them out.” And you should not be afraid to share your story with others. “Cancer is synonymous with death,” Duke said. “If you have gone through, you need to share that. Another person needs to hear that you went through it and survived.” “No two people came through the same. This is my journey, and you will have your own.”
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earson, a human resources manager who lives in Virginia Beach, fought an aggressive form of breast cancer after her diagnosis in 1999. As a volunteer and Board of Directors member for the local Susan G. Komen for the Cure chapter, she delivers her message with passion. “Be positive,â€? she said. “Keep hope alive. Find some joy in the journey.â€? She was 39, married and starting a new job when she saw a discharge coming from her breast. “Being a strong-headed person, I decided to wait until my annual mammogram,â€? Pearson said. By the time her cancer was diagnosed, six months later, it had progressed all the way to Stage 4.“I thought, ‘This is not pretty’ and after I stopped crying, I asked where we were going, and how were we going to get there.â€? Her cancer was fast-growing, and she agreed to hit it immediately with four months of chemotherapy. “It was what they call the red color chemo,â€? she said. “It always takes your hair out.â€? Next came radiation, and a single mastectomy. The cancer seemed to have been beaten. “I was singing a praise dance,â€? Pearson said. “So, I went on a cruise.â€? But on the cruise, she became sick, sneezing and coughing. A month later, she was still ill, and her doctor found the cancer was back. Since conventional approaches had not worked, Pearson was enrolled in a clinical trial of a new drug, Herceptin. “I was still ďŹ ghting,â€? Pearson said. “My doctor told me it was so aggressive, moving so fast, I might want
to get my affairs in order. I went home and started praying.â€? She continued on the Herceptin another six months. And the doctor did his scheduled scan, and there was the miracle. “The doctor says, ‘I don’t see anything.’ Everybody’s praying. I asked, ‘Did you make a mistake back then?’ “ Pearson stayed on Herceptin – which is now approved for use – for two and a half years, ďŹ nally stopping in 2003. “I’m missing my right breast, but I’m good with that,â€? she said. Her husband left, too. “His mom passed from cancer,â€? Pearson said. “He struggled with that. It made him hard to be a supporter.â€? When she ďŹ nished her treatment, Pearson did the 3-day Race for the Cure. “That was huge,â€? she said. “All those survivors, 2,000 of them, and all the people who volunteered. I found joy in giving back to the other survivors, trying to share and spread some hope.â€? The key to survival, Pearson said, is to stay hopeful. “I have seen some really bad things happen,â€? she said. “It was always when they give up. They started complaining – and there’s lots to complain about – and they get down in the mouth and start to have a woe-is-me attitude, and that’s the beginning of the downward spiral.â€? “You can survive. Look at me. I’m still here!â€?
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Sunday, October 2, 2016
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GEORGIA SHERLOCK
NOBODY CHOOSES TO GET CANCER... BUT YOU CAN CHOOSE HOW TO FIGHT IT.
t had been falling out, a side effect of the chemo that was fighting her breast cancer. Somehow, the strands that had begun to fall out had stuck to the rest, and she woke to find a matted mess. “A rake wouldn’t have gotten through it,” said Sherlock, a retired public school counselor who lives in Virginia Beach. She got out the clippers. During her long, sleepless night (insomnia is another side effect), she wrote an essay, a proper farewell to the locks she’d taken for granted for 69 years: “Good Bye, Hair.” “We have been together a long time and today you started to pack. Over the years you have been pretty patient with chemicals: unbelievable amounts of bleach (okay, maybe I should have let you keep your original color), hair spray by the gallon (well, you could have held curl a little better), conditioners, setting gels. Yikes! It was the taxol that finally outraged you right down to your natural color roots. I get it. I don’t love it all the time either. This is only a temporary situation. Seven more weeks and then you can start thinking of coming back. I cannot make any promises about the bleach or the hair spray but here’s an idea: why don’t you come back a little thicker, a little curlier, a little blonder? Hope to see you soon.” It has been a year this month since Sherlock penned those words. Her hair is back; it’s growing slow, Sherlock said, still mostly fuzz. “My husband says it’s
thicker. I think he’s just being nice.” The breast cancer diagnosis came after a routine mammogram in June of 2015. Sherlock had the procedure in the morning, and was hosting a family dinner that evening. As her guests arrived, the phone rang.” “They said I needed to come back,” Sherlock said, “and then they said ‘Plan to spend some time here.’ And I knew I was in trouble.” But somehow, her lumpectomy, radiation and chemo did not stifle her easy humor. “I know I was very fortunate,’’ Sherlock said. “I never missed a meal or a glass of wine. The breast surgeon was a magician; she moved breast tissue around so that the breast has retained its shape.” When she talks to other cancer survivors, Sherlock focuses on the fight, not the fear. “My message to the newly diagnosed,” Sherlock said, “is, ‘This is not the end of the world. It is a pain in the neck but it is quite doable. Yes, there were side effects but nothing horrible. It probably beats dying of cancer. My life went on and yours will, too.’” On the day of her yearly checkup, she gathered her family, this time at a restaurant, to mark the clean diagnosis. “We were drinking champagne and laughing,” Sherlock said, “and the waitress asked what we were celebrating. I looked at her and said, ‘My breasts are fabulous.’
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ELIZABETH
MARSA
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or 9 years, she collected boxes of cereal to hand out at the Union Mission. But last year, her body was too beaten by her treatments for her to gather donations for her holiday food drive. “I thought I’d have to sit that one out,” said Marsala, who is 53, and works as a histology technician (studying the microscopic anatomy of cells and tissue) at Portsmouth Naval Hospital, “and then I found I had angels who still collected the cereal for me.” Marsala has volunteered at the Norfolk shelter for years, working at the shelter at least once a week. Over the years, she noticed that the boxes of cereal were the first items chosen at the food pantry. “Cereal flies off the shelf,” she said. “It’s great for families. People who are living on the street, they can eat it without milk. They can tuck it into a backpack, they can feed it to their dogs. It’s just pure nutrition.” Mike took on the project last year, collecting 196 boxes of cereal and hauling them to the Union Mission. “Each week she visits the Union Mission and returns with stories of how happy people were to see the boxes of cereal,” Mike Marsala, a retired Norfolk firefighter, wrote when nominating his wife for the Power of Pink section. “Helping others truly gives her joy.”
The couple have been together for 24 years, he was working on a medic unit, and brought a patient to Sentara Leigh, where she worked. They met in the emergency room. He is still ga-ga for her. “She is still the love of my life,” he said. Elizabeth was diagnosed with breast cancer on Oct. 1, 2014, the first day of the annual breast cancer awareness month. She was talking with the ultrasound technician – two medical workers, speaking their own language – when the technician became quiet. A radiologist came through the door, and the Marsala’s world changed. “My husband was a mess,” she said. “Tears were just running down his face.” “The confirmation of breast cancer knocked the wind out of me,” Mike Marsala said, “and all the flashbacks of my mother’s illness and death in 1987 came rushing over me. I did not want to lose the love of my life. Still strong and steady, Elizabeth looked after me. With the class of a lady, strength of a lion, Elizabeth pressed on.” “I wasn’t as upset,” Elizabeth said. “I immediately went into business mode: What are my options, where do I go first?” Treatment went from 0 to 60. “For two weeks,” she said, “things went bang, bang, bang.” Elizabeth spent the holidays recovering from a double mastectomy, followed by
three surgeries. By fall, she was recovered enough to run in Komen’s Race for the Cure. But about a year into treatment, she began having pains and found her body was rejecting her implants. Her medical knowledge gave her an advantage when doctors were tossing around words like “microcalcification,” but her treatment journey was still painful. “It took me a long time to look in the mirror,” Marsala said. “My husband covered them for me.” There was an emotional wallop when a distant relative posted a note about her condition on facebook, before the Marsalas had told their grown children the news. But the couple, who have been together 24 years, leaned on one another. “You learn in a moment just what is important,” Mike Masala said. “It comes down to God, family, and friends.” The healing continued and another surgery was scheduled to add new implants. “Her reconstruction in August really brought back her spark and confidence,” Mike Marsala said. “It is still not all back, but her strength and determination only makes her more beautiful.” There is a cereal donation box at Norfolk Fire Department Federal Credit Union, 4100 E Virginia Beach Blvd, Norfolk, VA 23502
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Sunday, October 2, 2016
DR. RICHARD
HOEFER,JR. D
r. Richard Hoefer Jr. is right at home in a military town like Norfolk. The surgical oncologist has served at three Air Force Bases and at a MASH unit in Iraq, and for the nation’s top ranking medical officer. He is co-director of the Dorothy G. Hoefer Comprehensive Breast Center at Sentara Norfolk General, a wing named for his mother, as well as an assistant professor of clinical surgery in the Department of Surgery at Eastern Virginia Medical School and the Medical Director for Development of the Sentara Cancer Network. Dorothy G. Hoefer’s mother, sister, and step-daughter had breast cancer, and she made a grant to Sentara to establish the center that bears her name. Hoefer’s first passion was sports, he told Hampton Roads Physician. He was looking at a career in coaching and physical therapy, but found himself fascinated by the required anatomy class. After residency, he completed a Surgery Oncology Fellowship at M.D. Anderson
Cancer Center in 1984. After the fellowship, he served at the David Grant US Air Force Medical Center and back at Willford Hall Medical Center as a Surgical Oncologist and Residency Training Officer from 1984 to 1989. In 1990, he returned to active duty military as Chief of Surgery for the 159th MASH in Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. He and his wife, Dr. Elizabeth Harden, moved to Newport News in 1991. He had devoted his practice to surgical oncology, specializing in breast, colorectal, hepatobiliary, pancreatic and melanoma surgery. For breast cancer patients, Dr. Hoefer and his colleagues adopted an innovative treatment called intraoperative radiation. For early stage cancers, it’s administered during lumpectomy, and has shown promising results equivalent to whole breast radiation. He and Dr. Wilson, along with Dr. Song Kang, have contributed to abstracts being presented this Spring to the American Society of Breast Surgeons and the Society of Surgical Oncology.
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Sunday, October 2, 2016
BARB
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“E
ven before my family came, I had my
people, positive energy. You’ve got to become your
Navy family,� said Geraghty, a retired
own advocate.�
Navy captain living in Virginia Beach.
“There was always someone asking, ‘Do you need help? Do you need meals? Do you need a ride?’ They really stayed with me.�
After treatment, she dove back into her Navy life, but with a difference. “You really don’t know what is going on in someone’s life, why they are being negative,� Geraghty
Geraghty was 40, a graduate of the ďŹ rst Naval
said. “I worked in the Pentagon, and they had
Academy class to accept women. She was stationed
these big, long escalators. I’d always walk the stairs
in Washington, DC, and was about to leave for
instead, walking past all the people just standing
a new posting, as commanding ofďŹ cer at Naval
there, and I’d think, ‘Why are you not walking up?’
Support Facility Diego Garcia, a tiny island below
And then I was sick and had to ride, and I’d imagine
the equator known in the Navy as The Rock.
them saying the same thing about me.�
“If the breast cancer had not been discovered before,� she said, “I would have been out in the Indian Ocean with a lump and very little health care. It worked out for the best.� Her circumstances stateside weren’t so great, either. She was in the middle of a divorce, and her ex had already moved out. Her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer the year before. It was all too fresh for my mom,� Geraghty
“It taught me compassion.â€? It also gave her an appreciation of her family, and everyday life. “Everybody talks about having a bad hair day,â€? Geraghty said. “well, I’d rather have a bad hair day than a no-hair day.â€? After retiring from the Navy, Geraghty wanted to ďŹ nd some volunteer work. She turned to Komen. “I knew that Komen needed help,â€? said.
said. “She had just gone through it all, and she just
She participated in Race for the Cure in
couldn’t be in the chemo room. But my father sat
2011. Now, she holds the grants chair, leading the
with me.�
discussion about which groups will get a piece of
She battled cancer with an ofďŹ cer’s skills. “You know, they used to call it ‘The Big C.’ So it’s ‘C’ for cancer, but it’s also ‘C’ for control. I discovered that a lot depends on how you handle the medical plan, and how you deal with the medical professionals. You can take control of that. You put yourself ďŹ rst, and surround yourself with positive
the Race money. “We are always looking for people who exemplify the mission of Komen,â€? she said. “I’m living proof that when you ďŹ nd it early, it is treatable.â€?
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11
Sunday, October 2, 2016
SUZANNE
TATE
I
n 1977, Nags Head was a small town. “Everyone knew everyone, said Suzanne Tate, a writer who has lived there since her late husband, Everett Tate, brought her there as a young bride.
´(YHU\RQH NQHZ RQH DQRWKHU DQG HYHU\RQH NQHZ ZKDW ZDV JRLQJ RQ ZLWK HYHU\RQH HOVH Âľ Everyone pretty much knew that Suzanne Tate had breast cancer, and had gone off to Duke University for treatment and a double mastectomy. That was just after Betty Ford, the president’s wife, announced that she had breast cancer, and it was beginning to be spoken about in public. Everyone pretty much knew that Suzanne Tate had breast cancer, and undergone double mastectomy. And after a while, word got around that the ďŹ sherman’s wife was willing to help. “We didn’t have people down there to do it,â€? said Tate, 86. “So I started a Reach for Recovery –that was what the American Cancer Society called it then. I went into the community and counseled people who were facing it, or had had it. My late husband would tease me by calling me ‘Doctor Tate.’ One woman came looking for me, she’d heard that I had a mastectomy and was willing to talk. We became good friends, we became very good friends. In fact, we’re still friends.â€? Tate was 47 then, raising two sons –Mark was 18, and Frank was 13. She’d read a medical advice column in the newspaper, counseling that women with a family history of breast cancer should have a mammogram. Her maternal grandmother and an aunt had died of breast cancer. She and Everett drove the 200-some miles to Duke Medical Center – now Duke University – for her mammogram, then waited for a return call. “It came as a rush of fear to be called by the surgeon that Saturday morning,â€? Suzanne wrote in one of the essays she penned about her life. “My husband and I went there with heavy hearts and minds full of dread. The surgeon did not mince words. He told me that I needed to have both breasts removed‌I felt that my life had come crashing down!â€? Tate’s breasts were ďŹ brocystotic -- dense with lumpy, noncancerous tumors. At the time, surgeons routinely removed breasts in that condition, which is not standard procedure now. But they also found small malignant tumors in both breasts. Tate asked to have reconstruction, which her surgeon “did not favor.â€? She instead went to the Duke community called “The Breast Man.â€? “My ďŹ rst implants were silicone,â€? Tate said. “The Breast Man gave me a very pretty natural shape. However, the reconstructed breasts were larger than my natural ones. (That was supposed to make me happy!) I soon found that my body did not adjust well to implants.â€? Tate’s body rejected the implants, and then next, smaller pair. As medical science progressed, she traded those for saline implants, then another pair after the ďŹ rst failed. Her air-ďŹ lled implants went at in a just a few weeks. She gambled on yet another pair of saline implants, and when they were rejected by her body, she ďŹ nally had them removed and decided to quit trying. “I very much hated to lose my breasts,â€? Tate said. Everett Tate died 8 years ago, after 54 years of marriage. Tate is remarried. Amid all the crises, she became a doting grandmother who loved to read to her grandson. “I thought I could write a better book than what I was reading to him,â€? she said. A writer was born. For inspiration, she turned to the sea life teaming in the Outer Banks. Her ďŹ rst book, “Crabby and Nabby,â€? was the tale of a pair of blue crabs. In the last 28 years, she has written more than 35 children’s books. “I am surviving and thriving 39 years after breast cancer,â€? Tate said. “It is especially good to be alive, writing books and making children happy.â€?
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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT TO THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Sunday, October 2, 2016
S E N TA R A C A N C E R N E T W O R K
Confused About Mammograms? We Have Answers. Screenings are part of preventive cancer care and effective in alerting people who currently have a small, early-stage cancer in their body. When breast cancer is found through mammography, the cure rate is very high. For people who do have cancer, this can be a life-saving step on the road to treating cancer.
Early Detection, Better Outcomes Mammograms are easy to schedule and are accessible throughout Hampton Roads. The Affordable Care Act requires health plans, including those sold on the healthcare exchange, to include annual screening mammograms without copay or deductible for women 40 and older. For women who do not have insurance, there are grant programs to cover costs.
reast cancer is one of the most common types of cancer for women in the United States and soon we will be seeing a sea of “pink ribbon” initiatives for breast cancer awareness month in October. Awareness of the risks -- and the importance of mammograms as a screening tool -are fantastic, but there can be some confusion about when to start screening for breast cancer.
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Recently, a reporter conducted “woman on the street” interviews to find out what women in Hampton Roads know about current recommendations for mammograms. Here are some of the answers:
“I heard that you should do it when you turn 40. But then I also heard maybe you could wait until 45?” “I guess I’ll do it whenever my doctor tells me to.”
All Women Have Some Risk “At age 40, all women should have the conversation with their doctor about when would be a good age for them to begin screening,” said Dr. Kelley Allison, a fellowship-trained radiologist with Sentara Cancer Network. Screening mammograms, starting at age 40, are not done just to establish a baseline. These screenings are to look for cancers that could already be present. Women can develop cancer in their 40s. In fact, in a twoyear period (2013-2015), there were 577 women aged 40-49 were diagnosed with breast cancer. Hearing blanket statements of recommendations by age group shouldn’t replace personalized advice from a healthcare professional. There are many factors, including: • Personal health history • Current health status • Family health history • Age of first menstrual period • Age of first childbirth • Breastfeeding history • Lifestyle habits • Current health conditions • Environmental risks “Generally, every woman should consider having a mammogram between ages 40 and 45. As we get older, we have a higher risk of having breast cancer,” Dr. Sherry Scheib, an internal medicine physician with Sentara Medical Group.
Screenings: Simple and Usually Uneventful
“I was afraid because people said it hurt so I waited until next year, and then the year after that.” “I’m not sure about the statistics of which ethnic groups are at higher risks.” With the recent change in national recommendations about mammograms from the American Cancer Society and disagreement from other professional groups like the American College of Radiology and the American College of Surgeons, it can be hard to keep things straight. Here’s what local experts from the Sentara Cancer Network want you to keep in mind:
“There are a lot of myths related to breast cancer risks. The best way to know when to screen is to talk to your doctor,” said Dr. Terryl Times, a board-certified surgeon who often performs breast cancer surgery in the Sentara Cancer Network. It can be hard to convince people without family history or symptoms to be screened, but 75 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer have no significant family history, which means more than half of people with breast cancer may not be on the lookout for symptoms. Out of 1,000 women screened, just five will be diagnosed with breast cancer. For 9 out of 10 people, this is just a simple test and they are relieved that nothing has been found.
Most importantly, follow this advice of a breast cancer survivor who spoke with us during “woman on the street” interviews. She had been putting off her mammograms for several years and now is an advocate for others to have their mammograms. She wanted other women to know that they should be empowered to take care of themselves: “Go do it. Be very aware of your body.” An abnormal mammogram may cause anxiety but most women (61 out of 1,000) have additional imaging and find nothing is wrong. “If we do see a mammogram and notice an abnormality or something we think we need to clarify, that woman will be called back to do additional testing, which often times means a few additional pictures. This happens about 10 percent of the time, most of which turn out to be normal. Women should not fear having that mammogram,” said Dr. Allison. “Most of my job is to reassure women that they are OK.” If there’s something found, there are a number of treatment options which work best when tumors are caught early. Talk to your doctor about when you should get a mammogram, and how often. There are good reasons to take the time to discuss this, and to engage in preventive care to stay ahead of any potential cancer risks.
To Schedule Your Mammogram: www.sentara.com/mammogram 1-800-SENTARA
sentara.com/mammogram
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