“It Ends with Me”

A Survivor’s Fight For All Of Us

In October 2018, I learned that I had stage 4 breast cancer. I had no history of breast cancer and had regular mammograms. With a stage 4 diagnosis, my scheduled lumpectomy was canceled. I was told to go through my bucket list. That night, I met Dr. Elyse Lower, who is the Director of the UC Breast Cancer Care Program where no one is turned away, no one.

"How could this be missed?" I asked. Dr. Lower said I had dense breasts, and, on a mammogram, a tumor is white along with the fatty tissue of dense breast tissue. When reading a mammogram, it is likened to catching a snowflake in a snowstorm. A tumor mass is 17.8 times more likely to be missed on a mammogram. What I had was not rare. Close to half the women in the world have breasts like mine. The science is there and in other states, I would have learned of the risk and been offered an additional affordable screening test that is close to 99 percent accurate in women with dense breasts, such as the short MRI.

I told Dr. Lower I wanted to live. If it had been caught early, I would have had a 99 percent chance of complete remission, Now, I had a 1 percent chance. Of the 100 women who entered the waiting room with me, in 3 years, 50 would be dead, the others moving inexorably towards a painful ending. We would have to be very aggressive and nimble. I said if I survived, no woman with breast cancer would walk alone. The suffering would end with me.

Dr. Lower and I brought together a team of bi-partisan legislators Reps. Jean Schmidt and Sedrick Denson and radiologists Dr. Annie Brown and Dr. Mary Mahoney. Together and with the full support of University of Cincinnati, we passed a bill that is a model for the nation for the early detection of breast cancer.

Today, I have been in remission for over 4 years — against all odds. -

I have lived to see my children grow up. I want the same for you.