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.