{"id":3600,"date":"2026-07-11T10:48:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T05:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=3600"},"modified":"2026-07-11T10:48:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T05:48:44","slug":"the-complicated-reality-of-facing-breast-cancer-as-a-physician","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=3600","title":{"rendered":"The Complicated Reality of Facing Breast Cancer as a Physician"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cancer.org\/cancer\/types\/breast-cancer\/understanding-a-breast-cancer-diagnosis\/breast-cancer-grades.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"text link\">high-grade<\/a>) stage 3 breast cancer.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cgift\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019d 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\u2019s what I was experiencing, only intensified because of perimenopause. But the pain didn\u2019t go away once my period finished. When it lasted through another cycle, I was like, This doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n<p>Going into that appointment I suspected I could have cancer, but I\u2019m 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mayoclinic.org\/diseases-conditions\/fibroadenoma\/symptoms-causes\/syc-20352752\" class=\"text link\">fibroa<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mayoclinic.org\/diseases-conditions\/fibroadenoma\/symptoms-causes\/syc-20352752\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"text link\">d<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mayoclinic.org\/diseases-conditions\/fibroadenoma\/symptoms-causes\/syc-20352752\" class=\"text link\">enoma<\/a>. But during the mammogram, I felt like the tech was asking me leading questions, like \u201cDo you have breast cancer in your family?\u201d and \u201cHow long have you experienced this pain?\u201d Then I had the ultrasound, and usually, the breast radiologist comes in afterward to make sure nothing\u2019s been missed and to say everything looks good. However, when the breast radiologist came in, I unleashed my questions. I was like, \u201cDo you think it\u2019s a fibroadenoma or this or that?\u201d After a moment of quiet, she said, \u201cYou know, I hate when doctors are my patients.\u201d 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, \u201cYou can give it to me straight.\u201d 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\u2014I 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.<\/p>\n<p>The next day they called to confirm I had breast cancer. A few days after that, I learned it was stage 3 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.glamour.com\/story\/her2-positive-breast-cancer-vs-her2-negative\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"text link\">HER2-positive<\/a> 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media.glamour.com\/photos\/6a44099f501b5eed95022767\/16:9\/w_1280,c_limit\/IMG_5038.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-gossip"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}