GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — One in eight women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer, according to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
During this Breast Cancer Awareness Month, FOX 17 spoke with Melissa Christensen, one of the millions of breast cancer survivors in the U.S.
Her life changed in an instant after finding a lump in 2015.
"I just knew my body and I knew something was different," Christensen said. "I thought, Oh, I bet it's a cyst. I was in my mid-40s at the time. I thought, This can't possibly be breast cancer. I was wrong."
Christensen was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer and opted for a bilateral mastectomy.
"I was able to bypass chemotherapy and radiation, because I did decide to go for the bilateral mastectomy," she explained. "Not all women are that lucky. It really is the luck of the draw. It depends on when you find it."
Dr. Margaret Brown of Priority Health emphasized the importance of early detection and intervention.
"Really, the recommendation is, women who are 40 and older are getting mammograms every year. Some places will say every two years, but really, every year," Dr. Brown told FOX 17 News. "It's that, plus the regular monthly self-breast exams that are really critical."
Dr. Brown listed signs to watch for during self-exams.
"if you're finding that your nipple is inverted, if you're finding that there's a certain amount of discharge that's being unexpected from the nipple, if there's discoloration, if you're finding that there's sensitivity or some dimpling, or that you're finding that your pores are larger than anticipated," she said. "If you're noticing any of that at that point, you want to be sure to act quickly and early on."
She also noted both changeable and unchangeable risk factors.
"Looking at what we're consuming in our diet, what our physical activity looks like if we are consuming large amounts of alcohol quantities, and very frequently, that can change if we're using substances, so smoking or vaping," she explained. "Things that we can't change really just come down to, like, what's in our gene pool. So if we have a family history of breast cancer or other cancers, other types of cancers, we just have a higher propensity for it."
A decade after her diagnosis, Christensen is now ten years cancer-free, advocating for others with breast cancer.
"When you're newly diagnosed, even when you're not newly diagnosed, but if you're going through breast cancer, if you are a survivor, talk to your doctor, ask questions, just advocate for yourself. That's what we have to do."
For the third year in a row, Christensen was in New York last month for Fashion Week, attending a show to raise awareness in which all the models are breast cancer patients.
You can find resources from Priority Health here.
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