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There's Always That Chance...

About a year ago my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Although she went to her yearly mammograms and they never found the slightest trace of anything really being abnormal she appeared to be perfectly healthy. I’m not exactly sure when it started but out of the blue she spontaneously had pains under her arm, after several visits to several doctors...they found "nothing." I really just think the doctors thought my mom was crazy and making things up, that is until the day the pain became so severe that my mother could no longer lift her left arm! The doctors finally ran her through for an MRI to find out what exactly was causing her this much pain. Turned out that her auxiliary lymph nodes were inflamed and had a small mass of cancer cells. When we found out that not only did my mother have cancer, but it had spread from one spot to her Lymph nodes. Obviously the doctors she visited hadn’t taken her small aches serious enough. My mother’s Aunt had breast cancer, but she had died due to the fact that they didn’t catch it in time. Which made me realize what if they hadn’t caught my mom’s in time? What if it has already spread throughout her body?? Where did it start out at??? After the doctors ran a few tests, they found a very, very small mass in her left breast that was abnormal. Which also made me wonder…she goes in for mammograms every year, and her last one was only three weeks ago how did they not catch that? I guess the small mass was just a tad bit too small for the mammogram to catch it, and in result it had been growing and spreading to parts of her body. The thing that has really got me stumped is a week prior to her arm pains she mentioned that she felt, not sick, but as if there was something wrong going on in her body. Is cancer something you can feel as it spreads? It’s something to make you think about. Also it makes you wonder if you’re mammograms aren’t seeing enough… breast cancer is a serious disease I think if you have had someone in your family (parent, sister, aunt, grandma…) with breast cancer you should go in for further examination. I have just turned 19, I was 18 when my mother was diagnosed, as of now she is waiting on the okay to head over to Pasadena, California to receive a stem cell transplant at The City of Hope. I hope my story shows others that no matter how safe you think you might be…there’s always that chance it could happen to you.