Jenny Saldaña

Posted in Cancer at 4:45pm on Tuesday, November 17, 2009

New guidelines came out today that state women shouldn't get mammograms until they turn 50. I realize that this is for women who DO NOT have a family history or are at high risk, but it still doesn't make me feel better. I'm angry about this. This is only going to allow the insurance companies to deny more mammograms and other breast screenings. What’s wrong insurance companies? Are too many women surviving? The argument is that 50% of the women who got mammograms didn’t need them and a lot had unnecessary biopsies. I’ve been biopsied and it’s not fun, but guess what; I would’ve loved for my biopsy to have been a false alarm.

I felt something, and it grew and grew yet I was still told I was TOO YOUNG to get checked. I was dismissed as just a paranoid young woman; they implied that I was taking up resources NEEDED by women older than me. This is often the case with young women because we're not SUPPOSE to get breast cancer, right? I was the first person I ever met with breast cancer and I was WAY UNDER 40. So were Julia, Camille, Eileen, Jenna, Jennifer, and so many other women I have had the pleasure of meeting through this sorority we were all forced to join.

Yes, younger breasts have denser tissue and can cause false positive mammos (in my case it gave false negative results). This is not reason enough not to find the adequate screening tools. There is no official method of screening for women under 40 and this too, is sad. It leads to women being treated like I was for over a year before someone was finally concerned with the mass that had turned my breast rock hard and the discharged that stained numerous bras.

It is a FACT that younger women diagnosed with breast cancer have lower survival rate because early detection is not available to us and therefore by the time the cancer is diagnosed it can be in advanced stages. Since breast cancer is the second leading cancer death after lung cancer for women, shouldn't screening be available to ALL women?

Don't get me started on the whole "self breast exams are not necessary” IF I hadn't felt my lump I wouldn't be here to write this. “KNOW YOUR BODIES!!” is all I have to say. Know what’s normal for you, and if something feels out of the ordinary YELL! Yell until someone listens.

Once again I feel defeated as a cancer patient. Just when I think we're making progress, something like this happens and I feel I did that day when I heard the words that have changed my life: YOU HAVE CANCER.

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