When I was diagnosed at 48 years old, I thought it was all a big mistake. I’d had a false finding during my first mammo when I was 40, and decided I wasn’t going to have them anymore. When we changed insurance companies some years later, I had to pick a new primary care physician who insisted I get a mammogram. A week later, the doctor called and left three messages to call her back. When I reached her, she told me the results showed a mass and I needed to contact a surgeon. I explained emphatically how my left breast had shown a mass during my first mammo and it was just asymmetrical tissue, etc, and so this was just the same big mistake. She let me go on, and when I finished she very calmly said “It’s your right breast dear.” So it began.
- Jean Soulios, founder of Jeans Cream, 2-time survivor breast cancer