Blog

Life had been pretty good up my 31st birthday. I was married for two years and enjoyed my job and my work colleagues. The only exception was that I was experiencing a few minor health problems that were more a nuisance than anxiety-inducing in the previous few months.

Cancer patients often hear the words: “You’re so brave! I could never go through that.” As if we have a choice or are selected based on our bravery. I know some are as the pretty-in-pink Wonder Woman who stares the cancer monster in the face, one stiletto heel on its chest with a fist waved in victory. That’s not me. Not to brag, but I’m a wimp. Any inner strength I possessed didn’t begin to prepare me for hearing the words, “You have breast cancer.” If I fought a valiant battle, it’s not because I was brave; it’s because I was scared.

My name is Mary Vetting, and I am an eight-year breast cancer survivor.

Most people think of breast cancer as an older woman’s disease. It turns out, however, that breast cancer is actually the most common cancer in women aged 15-39.

A cancer diagnosis is terrifying for anyone, but it was especially frightening for me as my Mother died of metastatic breast cancer in 1998, after a brave, 14-year battle, at age 55.

As much as I still miss her everyday, the silver lining is that she became my guardian angel in many ways, but specifically in that high-risk specialists began screening me for breast cancer through bi-yearly mammograms, sonograms, and MRIs at age 31 because my Mother was first diagnosed at age 41.

Therefore, my breast cancer was caught early, before it spread.

My name is Terlisa Sheppard, and in November 1998, at the age of 31, while I was 34 weeks pregnant with my second child, I was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer.

I had been complaining to my gynecologist about feeling a lump under my arm but he informed me that it was probably a milk duct that had formed due to the pregnancy and told me not to worry about it.