3D Mammograms and Tomosynthesis for Early Detection

Another one with a false negative mammogram right here.

Denise McCroskey's avatar

Reading this post about 3D Mammograms, Tomosynthesis, and Dense Breasts may save your life.

This new mammogram technology was only approved by the FDA in February, 2011.   http://www.diagnosticimaging.com/tomosynthesis/fda-approves-first-3-d-mammography-imaging-system

In one day, I heard from two women who had Tomosynthesis.   It probably saved their lives, and certainly gave them a much better chance of survival.  In their cases, they had to pay $50 and $40 more respectively in addition to insurance.  At my local hospital,Mercy St. Charles, Oregon, Ohio, they do not charge any additional, so check with your hospital.  So many women I hear from had lumps that were never discovered on a regular Mammogram.  By the time they were diagnosed, they were Stage 3 or Stage 4.  And over 40% of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer find their own lumps.  The cold, hard reality is that many , many women diagnosed with advanced breast cancer had nice little letters from their mammography center saying they were…

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In Case You Have Not Been Here

My Wife Fights With Breast Cancer

Cancer patients more into social media than I probably know this from Facebook. I saw it via Tumblr several weeks ago but could not look at those pictures, it reminded me too much of my own bald head. I finally got courage to look today but found the about page too. Yes the pictures are important but I was really impressed with the about page, especially this quote:

“Sadly, most people do not want to hear these realities and at certain points we felt our support fading away.”

Says quite a lot, doesn’t it?

Being Positive–The Cancer Curmudgeon Way

I know my posts tend to be, well, curmudgeon-y. I do find the pink power “you can do this” stuff a little distasteful. But that is not to say I mind all kinds of encouragement type of quotes or graphics or etc.

Here is something encouraging, almost like the “fight” language, for the cancer malcontents.

(Source: chouncazzodicasino)
(Source: chouncazzodicasino)

The Only Time I Accept Battle Language In Cancer

The War on Cancer
source tastefully offensive

And another thanks to GBPR

Living With Cancer: Living Without Hair

Again, published in NY Times same time as “Feel Good War….”, little attention

Thanks to gbpr

Doctors Denounce Cancer Drug Prices of $100,000 a Year

This came out the same time as the “Feel Good….” article in NY Times, but I’ve seen less about it.

Our Feel-Good War on Breast Cancer: Who Will Listen?

I too thought the article familiar–as a BC patient I’ve gone looking for the info presented in the article. Departing from my usual curmudgeon-y way of viewing things, I will point out that since this article is in a “mainstream” (as in, not cancer-centric) publication, maybe the truths we BC patients know will be understood by those without cancer. I’ve often thought it would be great if some non-cancer websites/publications would take on PINK.

katherinembc's avatarihatebreastcancer

Peggy Orenstein’s NYT Magazine article,  “Our Feel-Good War on Breast Cancer,”  is generating a lot of commentary on Twitter and various message boards.I summarized the article and offered some commentary on the MBCN blog. But I still have a few more things to say.

As Orenstein’s article demonstrates, breast cancer is complex disease. Here are some quick thoughts about breast cancer and screening:

  • Many people reading this article will be looking for an excuse to perhaps ignore some symptom or avoid a doctor’s appointment. Don’t. Talk to you doctor and determine what screening is appropriate for you.
  • There is a difference between a screening mammogram and diagnostic mammogram. Note that Orenstein’s article concerns screening mammograms. If you are called back for a diagnostic mammogram, by all means keep that appointment! (“Diagnostic mammography…is an important tool,” says Dr. Gilbert Welch.  “No one argues about this.”)
  • Women who…

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True.

BcomingFree's avatarBcomingFree

“Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your lifelong passions, your relative good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it. And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and…

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Failure of Awareness

tumblr_mlvrwnC1d11r8dxjoo1_500

So I found this on my Tumblr dash. Hopefully I followed the thread correctly (I’m still not a blogging expert) and went to the source who posted the graphic AND this caption: “Saw this somewhere else and felt the need to post it cause no one else ever really tells you this stuff”. There were many more comments, but I had to cut them out to get this (not very clear) screenshot.

Unless it is fake, or contains misinformation, the blog is run by a 14 year old black girl (I am not using the PC African American because I’ve no idea if she is American). I have sent her(?) a message via Tumblr but do not expect a reply; and am cautious in believing the blog is real, as I was one of those fools that messaged back and forth with the Goldbergs on Tumblr, only to learn that the blog was run by a woman who only pretended to have terminal cancer, just for attention.

The post has been liked and/or reblogged over 75,000 times, so lots of people (hopefully most are real people with real blogs), all ages, nationalities, genders, agree. All these people think no one tells them this stuff, so they are trying to get it out there. Where the fuck did all of the awareness dollars go, if so many people think this information is not out there enough?

Is it because of pink over saturation that people no longer notice facts unless they are presented in some non-pink, non-October way? Is it the fact that pink marketing has targeted a very select group—(usually) white women of a certain age who buy products—and left all other demographics out cold? Is the fact that the message of pink marketing only includes very select facts about breast cancer, selling their target audience/customers a message on which The New York Times Magazine article (not even linking it here, I know everyone has read it) commented “…well-meaning awareness has ultimately made women less conscious of the facts…”? Is it some insidious combination of all of the above?

I mostly agreed with The New York Times Magazine article; it was basically a condensed version of tons of other pieces I’ve read since getting breast cancer my own damn self. The main part I did not agree with had to do with fear, and I may or may not post about that later. But I will tackle a little bit of it here, because apparently it is a factor.

According to the article young girls are getting “I (heart) boobies” bracelets, taught SBE, and Dr. Susan Love says, right in this article, “…but educating kids earlier — that bothers me. Here you are, especially in high school or junior high, just getting to know to your body. To do this search-and-destroy mission where your job is to find cancer that’s lurking even though the chance is minuscule to none. . . . It doesn’t serve anyone. And I don’t think it empowers girls. It scares them.”

Yeah, they are scared, they see lots of pink and boobies crap talking about cancer, and they probably have someone in their life with cancer. But getting no real information, they get on the internet for info that maybe does not give the whole story, presented in a kicky graphic (have no idea who created the graphic or if it was produced using pink dollars). Is this preferable?

Yes I agree that awareness has reached an over-saturation level in some demographics, because I am in that target customer group, so I’m sick of awareness too, but I’m not sure everyone got the real or whole story. In fact, maybe no one ever gets the real story until they do get breast cancer, or someone close to them gets it.

Can awareness campaigns please start putting the real facts out there, and do away with boobies and pink ribbons? I think people can handle it now, we don’t need to see half naked women to understand cancer anymore. Grow up media and marketing.