‘Be your own advocate’: Self breast examine helps woman save her own life

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Although October, also know as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, is coming to an end, awareness for the disease is something advocates want to spread year-round.

One woman shares her story about how early detection played a big role in her recovery.

“I found my first lump when I was 16,” said Nicole Jones. “And a few weeks later, I had a lumpectomy.”

Jones says doctors thought it was nothing. It took going to several doctors, for them to take the lump seriously.

That’s when Jones’s journey with breast cancer began. She spent the next 20 years religiously getting mammograms and performing self checks.

“I remember being in the shower,” she said. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh, that’s just not right.”

When she was 42, Jones felt another lump.

“And I went to my doctor and she felt it as well, but she told me to wait another four months until my mammogram was scheduled,” she said.

Jones knew in her gut something was wrong. Despite what her doctor said, she insisted on getting a mammogram immediately.

“The radiologist pulled me back immediately and said to find a surgeon quickly,” Jones said. “My world started spinning and I realized this was bigger than what it was before.”

She says it was those four months that made the difference – the difference in how things may have turned out for her.

“15 or 20 years ago, they would usually come because they had a lump in their breast and we would start to work up from there,” Dr. Richard Scallion at Novant Health said.

Now, Scallion says mammograms are so advanced they can detect a lump before you might even feel it.

“We like to catch these lesions when they’re small, and that’s how most of them are caught,” he said. “They come in with maybe less than a centimeter in mass, it’s removed and they go through the full treatment. The prognosis is at least 90% cure rate.”

Scallion says most hospitals nowadays have a 3D mammography machine. The machine moves from different angles to get more accurate scans.

He also says getting yearly mammograms starting at age 40 can be key.

“There’s a big difference,” he said. “When they come in and they haven’t been having mammograms and there’s been no attention, a lot of the times patients will present with a much larger breast cancer that’s harder to cure.”

For patients like Jones, whose grandmother died from breast cancer, she started getting mammograms at an earlier age.

“You might have a tendency to start a little earlier if there’s a strong family history,” Scallion said.

With the advances in technology and awareness, Scallion says breast cancer is often treatable.

Jones has made it her mission to spread awareness to everyone.

“Get a mammogram,” she said. “There’s just not reason not too. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s not painful In the end, would you rather have that pain, or the pain of a mastectomy.”

No matter your age, gender, or family history, Jones had one major piece of advice.

“Be your own advocate and take care of your own body and know your own body,” she said.

As part of being her own advocate, Jones does self-checks almost every day. She says it’s become second-nature.

Although breast cancer is often thought of as a disease that affects women, Scallion says men can get breast cancer too, so everyone should be aware.