Take it from me: Don’t put off a mammogram

In October, everything seems to be shades of pink, to raise breast cancer awareness. The amount of pink can be overwhelming.

You turn on the news and hear stories of celebrities who valiantly fought the disease: Christina Applegate, Olivia Newton-John, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Katie Couric. You hear of regular people who have it – and perhaps think to yourself that it is probably time to schedule a mammogram.

Or maybe you think you can put it off another year. Or you don’t have a family history, so why bother? Or you are just scared and would rather not get bad news.

Over the last couple of years, it was often easy to put off this necessary screening due to these reasons and more. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, many mammograms had to be rescheduled – and even when it was possible to get an appointment, many women were afraid to go to doctor’s offices or clinics or hospitals.

The American Cancer Society (ACS) estimates that one-third of Americans skipped a routine cancer screening in the first 18 months of the pandemic, while the Journal of the National Cancer Institute says that mammograms dropped by as much as 80% at times during the pandemic – a drop that might result in additional deaths over the next decade. The ACS estimates that about 36,000 people had a missed or delayed diagnosis from March to early June 2020.

Among the women who put off mammograms are some who are at higher risk for breast cancer due to genetics. According to Sharsheret, a Jewish breast cancer nonprofit, one in 40 Ashkenazi Jews – men and women – carries a BRCA gene mutation, which is more than 10 times the rate of the general population.

The BRCA gene puts people at a higher risk for several cancers, including breast (female or male), ovarian, pancreatic, prostate and melanoma. The gene can be on either the mother’s or father’s side of the family, or both. People who test positive for the gene should not delay any routine screening tests. In fact, if you carry the BRCA gene, screening should begin at an earlier age.

So why am I writing about this? Am I just sharing some of the random facts swirling around my brain? Not quite.

Just over nine years ago, I thought I felt a lump in my breast, but I had every excuse to put off a mammogram. I had two little kids at home, a full-time job and lots of responsibilities. And I was only 38 – way too young to worry about breast cancer, I thought.

But something told me to keep the appointment, and within six weeks, I was in the infusion center at The Miriam Hospital getting my first chemo treatment.

In a whirlwind of just a few weeks, I had been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer, found out I was BRCA+ and had to come to terms with a very new normal.

Had I put off that test, I might not be writing about it today.

So no matter how busy you are, or how scared, get screened. It really could save your life.

SARA MASRI (smasri@jewishallianceri.org) is the chief development officer at the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island. She is a nine-year cancer survivor.