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Stories
Tanja's Story
Through a mammogram, 40-year-old, Tanja discovered she had cancer in October, 2001.
"What made my cancer unusual is that I had a baseline mammo at age 38, and they saw calcification - which was misdiagnosed by the radiologist as being benign, normal, calcification," says Tanja. Yet in retrospect, one of the views clearly showed she should have been biopsied. Unfortunately, her doctor, a family practitioner, said, "Don't worry. Get your next mammogram in two years, when you're forty.
Tanja did as he suggested, without getting a second opinion. She returned for her next appointment right after she turned 40. "I was busy at work," she says, "and the first time around I rescheduled the appointment for several months later. I had no family history of cancer, so I never thought I was at risk."
"Strangely, I almost cancelled the second mammo. But I didn't and this one picked up cancer in one quarter of my breast. And then, using a sonogram, the radiologist picked up cancer in another quadrant."
Originally, the doctors thought the cancer was still in the milk ducts. After the sonogram, Tanja had a "core biopsy," which was done by the mammogram office, and which she called, "very painful." She lay on a table, stomach down, with her breast falling into a hole. The doctor came up from underneath with a machine. He went into the breast with a drill and a tube, taking breast tissue.
Afterwards, using the sonogram, they found the additional cancer. The technologist said, "You're looking at a mastectomy."
Then, because she had an unusually aggressive cancer, she had a double mastectomy. Even with no involvement of her lymph nodes, she underwent chemotherapy.
As with other chemo patients, she lost her hair, and endured chemo that left her feeling nauseated and weak for all but a few days during the regimen.
Using expanders, Tanja went through reconstruction, and eventually had an almost-normal looking figure. She says now, my breast cancer surgeon saved my life. But my plastic surgeon, gave me back my life as a woman."
Tanja and her breast cancer surgeon have started a foundation to inform and empower other women. She says now she should have gotten a second opinion on her first mammogram, but with no family history she felt she was okay, and didn't worry about rescheduling her diagnosis.
At the time of her breast surgeries, Tanja was only 38, and the mother of twin boys and a daughter. She says it's been a struggle to manage with young kids. But she now has her own business and seems buoyant about her future.
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