The Complicated Reality of Facing Breast Cancer as a Physician
It all happened very, very fast. Between August and December of 2024, I went from having a clear mammogram and a clean bill of health to being diagnosed with fast-growing (or high-grade) stage 3 breast cancer.
I had been extravigilant about my breast health too. My cousin passed away from breast cancer in 2018, leaving a lasting mark on our family and making us all more aware. I decided that starting at age 40, I would “gift” myself a mammogram every year right after my birthday so I would never forget. Despite my cousin having breast cancer, I had no family history in first-degree relatives, like parents and siblings, which could raise my risk of getting the disease. So when I had my annual mammogram in August 2024, it was just a routine screening, followed by an ultrasound because I had very dense breasts. They said everything looked fine and to come back in a year.
But I was also dedicated to doing monthly self-exams, and that fall I noticed that my breasts felt a little bit lumpier than usual. It was hard to say for sure because I had such dense and lumpy-feeling breasts already. But I’d gotten to know them well over doing those checks on myself, and they seemed different. During that same period of time, I started having some breast pain, which I thought might be a perimenopause symptom. A lot of people get breast pain as their menstrual cycle starts, so I thought that’s what I was experiencing, only intensified because of perimenopause. But the pain didn’t go away once my period finished. When it lasted through another cycle, I was like, This doesn’t feel right to me. I called my primary care doctor and said I wanted to schedule another mammogram and ultrasound. This was toward the end of November.
Going into that appointment I suspected I could have cancer, but I’m a physician, so I was holding out hope. In my mind I had a whole list of other things it could possibly be, including a cyst or a fibroadenoma. But during the mammogram, I felt like the tech was asking me leading questions, like “Do you have breast cancer in your family?” and “How long have you experienced this pain?” Then I had the ultrasound, and usually, the breast radiologist comes in afterward to make sure nothing’s been missed and to say everything looks good. However, when the breast radiologist came in, I unleashed my questions. I was like, “Do you think it’s a fibroadenoma or this or that?” After a moment of quiet, she said, “You know, I hate when doctors are my patients.” She then explained that my lymph nodes looked abnormal. That was enough for me to know it was breast cancer and had already spread. I told her, “You can give it to me straight.” She said she thought it was cancer and asked if I could stay for a biopsy. There was nowhere else I would have rather been in that moment—I needed to know what was going on. My husband came to join me, and I probably cried for two hours while waiting for the biopsy.
The next day they called to confirm I had breast cancer. A few days after that, I learned it was stage 3 HER2-positive breast cancer, a subtype of breast cancer that tends to be more aggressive because the cancer cells grow and divide rapidly. With HER2-positive disease it’s not uncommon for tumors to grow quite large in a relatively short period of time. I felt overwhelmed, but was I shocked? Not really. Going into my mammogram appointment, I had already been feeling very suspicious and wary.
