Tag Archives: mammogram
Dense Breasts
Following my first mammogram, at 40, the physician reading my films (they weren’t digital back then) called me into her office. She looked very solemn and my heart started pounding as I waited to hear she had found something. “You have dense breasts,” she said. Then she stopped and just looked at me.
Relieved that I hadn’t heard that there was a lump, I exhaled and stared back, waiting for her to explain the significance of what she had just told me.
She explained that having dense breasts was a risk factor for getting breast cancer. She also stated that dense breasts …
Who is Reading Your Mammogram?
Not all mammogram facilities are equal in quality of staff performing the screenings, the equipment and who is reading your mammogram.
It doesn’t matter where your referral comes from. It does matter where you have your mammogram. You need to do your due diligence. You need to check out the facility recommended to you by a health care professional or a friend.
You want to make sure that you choose a facility that is accredited under the Mammography Quality Standards Act. The American College of Radiology (ACR) is the accrediting body for most states. It has requirements that facilities must meet in …
Breast Cancer’s Toll on African-American Women
According to the National Cancer Institute, NCI, nearly 27,000 African-American women are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. While they are less likely than white women to be diagnosed with breast cancer, they are more likely to die from it than any other race and are more likely to be diagnosed at an advanced stage.
Lack of medical coverage, unequal access to improved treatments, and barriers to early detection and screening, account for the striking racial disparities according to NCI. Across the board, the death rate for all cancers combined is 25 percent higher for African-American women than …
A Mother’s Day Gift
This Mother’s Day, give the gift of the mammogram nag.
Reach out to those mothers and grandmothers that you know haven’t been getting annual mammograms and remind them that it is time for them to get that mammogram they have been putting off for so long.
You will hear the usual excuses for not getting a mammogram:
Too busy…no woman is so busy that she can’t take a half hour to have a life-saving screening
Can’t afford it…Call local Departments of Health for sites that offer free mammograms
Afraid of the outcome…most of us are afraid, but we are more afraid of having breast cancer
It …
PAINT THE TOWN PINK: Brenda Pignone: ‘I am blessed to be here’
Wicked Local Abington
Posted Oct 17, 2010
Seven year ago July 8, 2003 on what was planned to be a day shopping with my then 13-year-old daughter became a day that stopped me in my tracks and cemented the meaning of “your life can change forever in one moment.”
Sara and I took the train to Boston and I told her that I needed to stop at Mass General Hospital to “quickly have my mammogram” and then we could head out for a day of shopping and lunch. The radiologist suggested that the mammogram showed an area of calcifications and that she would like …
PAINT THE TOWN PINK: Sisters face, fight breast cancer together
By Meredith Holford
GateHouse News Service
Throughout her childhood, East Mansfield resident Linda Wallace and her younger sister, MaryAnn McCaslin of Dedham, had the usual sibling rivalry. Only 20 months apart in age, Wallace said they each wanted what the other one had.
“We’ve always been very competitive,” Wallace said over coffee, on her 28th wedding anniversary.
But they never expected what they actually would end up sharing as adults — breast cancer.
Wallace brought with her to the coffee shop a photograph of herself, her sister, and a group of cousins who had taken a trip to Anguilla …
