(gentle music) (phone rings) - kc's, how are you? - how's that temperature? - good. - is that good?okay. - well, it's kind of adifferent thanksgiving for me. january 12th i'll start mychemo and herceptin treatments. everybody's just tryingto take care of me.
- are you feeling okay? - yeah, i feel great. what i tell everybody is that i feel absolutely fantastic,i just can't imagine that i'm fixing tohave to go through what i'm about to face. my name is merry lunsford,i'm 45 years old, and i was recentlydiagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma.
i'm a single motherof four daughters, so i'm very busy. i do feel great,i feel fantastic. i can't believe thati have breast cancer. (hair dryer blowing) when i'm talking to my clients, other people overhear usand our conversations, and everybody has somebodythat is close to them that's experienced it.
i'm definitely not aunique case, i know that. the crazy thing is,people are getting it, and it's just earlierand earlier. yeah. just make sure you keepthose ta-tas checked. do i look like a hairdresser? - you look like you area consumate professional. - i think i'm ready. - i think you are ready too. i guess i should go,i've got to get to work.
- okay, give me a hug. itwas so good to see you. i love you. how are you doing today? - this was my birthdaycake, my daughter... - oh, when was your birthday? - it was sunday, but mydaughter baked for me and i brought youa piece to enjoy. - okay, i love carrot cake. you want to put a smock on?
- i do. - i'll get your color mixed. once i got busy istarted feeling better. so, there it is, i'llsee you in a minute. sometimes i kind oflook at myself as being somewhat of a chemist,because we have to measure and formulate and comeup with that perfect formula for each client. as far as what mycareer does for me,
i immerse myself into them,because i want to help them. then i kind of seemyself as a caretaker, or maybe a psychologist,i definitely am an artist. tell me about what roleyou had when you worked in memphis in theirbreast care center. - people came in and gottheir mammograms done, their screenings, andthen if there was some problem or symptom,we did diagnostic. - okay, yeah.
unfortunately, my motherwas diagnosed with breast cancerat age 36. she died when shewas 42, and i'm 45, just finding out thati have breast cancer, but i plan on surviving. - i know that mostwomen say, "if i don't have a familyhistory of breast cancer, "guess what, i don'tneed a mammogram." but that's not true.
majority, 3/4 of breastcancer is detected in women with no family historyof breast cancer. the family historyof breast cancer puts a woman at higher risk ofdeveloping breast cancer, but no family historydoes not mean that you'll never developbreast cancer. - my name is katrina myricks, and i'm a three yearbreast cancer survivor. there is no familyhistory for me
dealing with breast cancer. when i was 48 years old, i wentin for a routine mammogram, and they found that ihad a lump in my breast. i did not find it,they found it, and at that time theytold me i was diagnosed with triple negativebreast cancer. - even though thebreast cancer incidence is lower inafrican-american women, the breast cancermortality is higher.
primarily because ofthe predominance of a more aggressive formof breast cancer in african-american women. - triple negative breastcancer is a rare cancer. it's an aggressive cancer. i was diagnosed in january. i had just buried afriend in november, and another friend, ithink it was around april. that was two friends, but,in the back of my mind was
it comes in threes, and thenext thing that i was thinking was that i was the thirdone, and i was not ready to leave my daughter. - tonight a governmentadvisory panel weighed in with updated recommendationsthat could make that decision evenmore difficult. - [voiceover] the ever shiftingguidelines for starting mammograms leave some womenfeeling like they're playing a game of chance.
- uspstf, or thetask force, as they call it for short, theylaid out the guideline that a woman should starther annual mammograms at the age of 50,and then have it done every other yearinstead of every year. the second body thatissued guidelines was the american cancer society,and they said that women between ages of 40to 44 do not need to get a mammogram everyyear, or a mammogram at all.
starting at age 45, theycan consult with a doctor whether to get it doneevery year, but they do recommend every year. - welcome back to southernremedy, your weekly doctor call in show. those of you who havebeen listening to the news are probably totallyconfused about breast cancer and breast cancerscreening from all the informationthat you're hearing.
there are severaldifferent groups of doctors who are "experts" thatget together andmake recommendations for what kind ofscreening should be done in breast cancerprevention, right? - that's right. - and they havedifferent opinions, is that where the confusion is? what's the deal? - yes, so, several years ago,
the us preventative servicestask force came out, and they recommendedthat we delay screening mammographyuntil age 50. just recently, theamerican cancer society has come out and said,maybe we should start at age 45 instead of 40. discuss it withwomen of average risk from age 40 to 44,but they said you can start at age 45.
kind of the number that'sout there right now is that one in eightwomen are going to be diagnosed with breast cancer, and so if more peoplehave access to heathcare who currently don't, thatjust increases your number of people who aregoing to be diagnosed. - what are the riskfactors for breast cancer? - increasing age,like you mentioned, anything that increasesyour exposure to estrogens,
like dr. mckinney said,a family history, not only over breast cancer,but ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, other cancerscan run in the family and put you atincreased risk. - let's go to ellisin tunica, hey ellis. - [ellis] good morning. - thanks for yourcall, what's going on? - [ellis] i have five daughters, so i'm surrounded by breasts.
i had bladder cancer a yearago, but i'm clear now, but does that give us anyreason for additional caution? - there's no breast cancer,there's no prostate cancer, no ovarian or otherfemale gyn cancers, and they don't have aknown genetic mutation or anything like that, orthey don't have any other medical problems that areassociated with breast cancer, they are consideredto be an average risk. that means, by currentguidelines, we would discuss
mammography with themstarting at age 40, but if they're averagerisk, according to the american cancer society,they would start at age 45. - [deshazo] who saysyou can get it at 40? - well, that's whatdr. mckinney was saying. you really have to document,you really have to look at each individual patient,look at their risk factors, look at their family history. - [deshazo] but that'ssome other group says
you ought to getit at 40, right? have they agreed? - american cancersociety was the main one that was holding out. no, it's still controversial. - the governing body forradiology and breast imaging is the americancollege of radiology, and that's the guidelinesthat i trust the most, because they have themost and current data
to support their guidelines. that data suggests that a woman,starting at the age of 40, an asymptomatic woman,starting her mammograms at the age of 40,and going anually has the maximum benefit. - doesn't it make more senseto get it early and frequently, rather than intermittently? what is the risk? - in my opinion,i would say yes,
because i see a lotof breast cancer, but the reason they'resaying to hold off is to decrease the chanceof getting false positives. in these younger women,with more dense breasts, there is an increased riskthat someone might see something that theythink is abnormal, that this patientmight get a biopsy, which is benign, thatmaybe was unnecessary. - [deshazo] we have abreast cancer problem,
and we'll talk about it,if you give us a call at 1-877-mpb-ring,1-877-672-7464, right after thisquickie break. i want to talk abouthealth disparities. i want to talk aboutblack women and breast, and i also want to tell youthat i'm very pissed off that they're saying thatme, as a primary care doctor should not be doingbreast examinations when i do history and physical.
that is awful, and theresidents are hearing, and when i say inmorning report, "what was the breast exam?" they say, "well,we don't do those." - they also need to bedoing self breast exams. - [dr. mckinney] well that, too. - [deshazo] yeah, absolutely. they're tellingthem not to do that. - a good majority of ourpatients in their 30s
who are diagnosed findsomething themselves. - i still think youshould have a clinical breast exam yearly,by either your primary care doctoror your ob/gyn. i also think womenshould continue to do monthly self breast exams,because it is not uncommon for me to see a patientor for lots of people to see a patient who recentlyhad a normal mammogram, and then they pop up witha lump, two months later.
- all right, so, you goodto play with this one? - i'm good. - you're goingto have fun. - good deal. - i had gone out toplay some tennis, and i came home andi was pretty sweaty, and i had a kind ofburning, itching sensation just underneath my right armpit. i reached up to kind of scratch
and just make that littleburny sensation go away, and i noticed therewas a small knot. i thought, "hmm, thisdoesn't feel quite right." so, i ignored it. - i say up or down. - you say up ordown, she'll call it. - and then maybe acouple weeks later i had another episode towhere it began to kind of have an itching,burning sensation again,
and once again, i reachedup to feel that the knot was still there. i didn't try to moveit around or anything, i just thought ineeded to go ahead and have a wellness exam done. the mammogram really didn'tshow just a perfect view, so from there i went into have a sonogram done. - her twin sister, sherry, just so happens tobe a sonographer.
- she happened to be thesonographer scheduled for the sonogram that day. - sherry scanned it,and she was like, "oh merry, you need tohave this taken out." she's verypersistent, sherry is. - from there, thedoctor comes in and he said that normally theywould just suggest that they would see me backin six months and that he felt certain thatit was nothing to be
too alarmed about, andthat if i wanted to come back in sixmonths and have them scan it again they would. from there they walkedout of the room, and then within justa minute or two, they walked backinto the room, and the doctor decidesto refer me to a surgeon. good shot, ryan! - things would bedifferent for my mom
if my aunt would nothave been so persistent, in urging the doctors togo ahead and take it out. because, if shewould have waited, it could have gone tostage two or three, without us knowing. - oh, we got lucky. had i not had her there,and had i listened to the doctor about waiting six months, my prognosis would be in atotally different situation.
- good match guys. - enjoyed it. - annual screeningmammograms, the purpose is todetect the cancer at its smallest,earliest stage. that doesn't meanthat mammography will find 100% ofbreast cancers. we find a majority ofthe breast cancers. - a lot of times you'll findthat people are reluctant.
number one, they don'tknow what to expect, and the only thingthey hear is that their breast is going tobe squeezed in a machine. so, they don't knowwhat to expect. - we always compress thebreast for a mammogram, and the compressionis done mainly to separate thebreast tissue out, so you can actuallysee underlying massesor abnormalities, if there are any, better.
- my breast cancer wasfound through a mammogram, and the option thatwas presented to me by my surgeonwas lumpectomy. once hearing aboutthe lumpectomy and what the procedurewas going to be, my next question was,what about a mastectomy. when we talk aboutthe mastectomy, i was informed thatthere was enough margin going around thecancer that they
were able to cut it out. - you're listeningto southern remedy, 1-877-672-7464 is our number, we still have a little bitof time to take your calls. dr. craft, my wife, when shestarted having mammograms, would pick the person to do it. - yes. - because every timethis guy did it, he squeezed her sohard she got bruises.
should we avoid mendoing mammograms? (laughter) - no, but i do think,as with all tests, and as with everythingyou get done, whether it's your haircut,whether it's your mammogram, there are certain peoplewho tend to make things a littlemore comfortable, a little morepleasant experience. - [deshazo] domammograms hurt, now?
- they are still... - [deshazo] some womenhave tender breasts, right? - a little uncomfortable, ithink it depends on the person. i think they stillcan be uncomfortable, they do compress the breast, which is different thancompressing your hand. you need to haveyour screenings, i don't think youneed to ignore anything that'sconcerning.
whether it's because offear, access to care, if you find somethingabnormal, if you're worried, youneed to get it checked out. - hey baby, did youhave a great day? - yeah. - i'll have surgeryon december 3rd. for my oldest daughter, it'sgoing to be kind of difficult, because she's going tohave to make major changes. where the three youngerones will stay with their
normal activities, we'renot going to disrupt their activities at all, and for me to be ableto do that for them, brooke has decidedthat she would like to make a job transfer. - i decided to put in for atransfer to move back up here, to help takecare of the girls, get the girls to school,get them back from school, do all their extra activities,
so she wouldn't haveto worry about that. - she's going totake my role of being that chauffer,or a taxi driver. everybody's going to keep onwith their normal schedules. actually, reagan andavery, wednesday night, are going to spendthe night with vicki, because i have tobe at the hospital probably pretty earlythursday morning. you're going to be takencare of, all right?
bye sm, i love you! i made the decisionat the very end, to do a bilateral mastectomy. i forgot my blanket, theone that's crocheted. i come from a longline of breast cancer. i didn't want thebreast cancer to even repeat itself again. i don't like having tostop in my steps and take care of myself now,
and i definitely don'twant to have to return and do it for a second time. so, for me, it just seemedto be a wise decision to go ahead andtake care of it all. after the bilateral mastectomy, i'll have reconstruction doneimmediately, the same day. it definitely will notbe completed that day, but we definitely willbegin the very first baby steps of my reconstruction.
for me, thereconstruction was vital, because my memoriesof my mother, was just seeing achest, a concave chest, because she had had sucha radical mastectomy. they removed everything,and nothing was replaced. can i go ahead andstart walking in? for me, being a 45year old single mother, that's not what ireally wanted my girls to have memories of like i have.
thankfully, nowadays, theycan do reconstruction, start the reconstructionthe very same day. the day that i gothome, i felt okay. i was still experiencinga lot of feeling tired, i was still feeling verysick from the anesthesia and some of the pain medicinethat they were giving me. hey joe, rach, i'm soglad you came to see me. - i gotta hug your neck. - today, my oldest sister,she has come to visit.
she's here to getme on a new diet. i just didn't haveany clue as to what was about to happen,and how i was going to physically manage it. as of right now,i've overcome it. i'm feeling prettygood about it. i do have some momentswhere i do hit a little tired stage, and i just haveto take a moment and rest. one of the things shetalked about was my diet,
and how i needed to evenincrease my amount of protein, and i didn't know this, but protein has a lotto do with healing. - yeah, that's why ibrought you the chia seeds. - okay, those are protein? i'm eight weeks outinto my recovery. i've started backto work this week. it seems like everything'sgoing really good, and my clients are justexcited to have me back.
there are small proceduresthat you have to go through before we actually do thereconstructive surgery. the reconstructivesurgery won't happen until after i'm finishedwith all my treatments. i do have a bust line,and that is the shell of my breast, and insidethe shell of the breast, is something calledplastic expanders, they slowly injecta saline solution to increase the sizeto create a pocket,
and in that pocket thatthey're trying to create, they will later be able toput an implant in that pocket. i was telling somebodythe other day that it's kind of funny howwe have this love affair with our hair, you know? when i saw it fallingout last week, i just had a complete meltdown. of course, it's the inevitable, it's somethingthat's gonna happen,
and you already knowit's going to happen. still, when your timecomes to start losing it, it's really kind of difficult. - chemotherapy is a drip drug, but they also give youseveral other drugs before you really get tothe chemotherapy portion. mine was what theycall the red devil. when they tell you thatyou have the red devil, i had one of the harshest ones,
and that's because ofhaving triple negative. - i've already been throughone chemo treatment. it was only minor discomfort, it wasn't anything thatknocked me off my feet. i was still able toget up, move around. i did small housework, likefolding clothes, wash dishes. in the midst of all ofthat, i did experience severe nausea, vomiting,and i did end up having a severe headachethat wouldn't go away.
- chemotherapy is differentfor each individual, because it's goingto work on your body, so it's going to entailwhat shape you're in, what other things aregoing on with your body. and honestly, you can'treally listen to other people, because what i went through,you may not go through. - when i noticed that myhair began to fall out, on day 15, i decided iwanted to do something fun, because having four daughters,
it can be kind of traumaticfor them to see and experience my hair loss along with me. my coworkers joined in with us, they all came inon a sunday evening to give each one of mygirls a hot pink streak in their hair, and thenwe decided to do my whole head pink, andthen crossed our fingers that it wouldn'tfall off my head. luckily, i had pinkhair for about two days,
and it gradually hasgotten thinner and thinner. today, we're going to justgo ahead and zip it off. (clippers buzz) - and it's still prettyand pink. (solemn piano) - merry, you have theperfect head, baby. - that feels so good, canyou do it a little harder? - i'm trying to be tender. i love that it's pink,
what a beautiful head. you look sobeautiful, oh my god! i love that you're inall pink today, too. you look like a rock star. - i think i've justembraced a new look. i love it. i think my eyes arepopping, they look bigger. i feel beautiful. i do, i feel beautiful.
thanks mim. - oh my god. - oh my gosh. yeah, i feel beautiful. this is a good cry. - when i was diagnosedwith breast cancer, i lost my hair in two daysfrom chemotherapy, two to three days,i was bald, and i came herefor a wig.
- you guys arethe greatest. - we broughtmore wigs. - thank you! - it was sort of funny forme, coming here to get one, but i just didn't expectto find what i did, which was nota good selection. another one of mysorority sisters came, she had a bout with cancer,it was not breast cancer. she called me, she's like,
"katrina, i don't wear wigs,but that place over there "called american cancersociety, they don't have "any cute wigs, we gottado something about that." for three years we wouldsupport the diva den with wigs. last year we collectedover 50 wigs, we brought wigs and wig brushes. then, a person wholost their hair... when you're goingthrough cancer, and you do haveall your treatments
you have to go through, youstill want to look beautiful. you're going to have yourdays where you're very weak, and you don't feel likeputting on your makeup, or doing these things,and when you're bald, and you walk out in public,sometimes people look at you, and it doesn't, you arefeeling very insecure. but when you have thathair on your head, believe it or not, youcan hide a lot of things. i have a passionfor these ladies now
as they lose their hair, that you still wantto be beautiful, and some have a hardtime losing their hair, a very hard time. being diagnosed with breastcancer can be a bad thing, but going through the processof never being detected can be even worse. what i mean by thatis, if you don't do self breast exams, ifyou don't go in for routine
mammograms, you'll never knowwhat's wrong on the inside, if you're not takingcare of yourself. - i personally still thinkyou should start at age 40. at a minimum, start at 45,but i would still say 40, and i think a lot ofother leaders in the field would still start at age 40. - right now there are somany guidelines out there. i would be thoroughly confused if i wasn't amedical professional.
- you need to haveyour screening. if you find a lump, youneed to see your doctor. you need to see someoneand have that evaluated, you don't need to ignore it. - educate yourself.empower yourself. read the statistics. read why it was okayto get a mammogram every year starting at40 up until last year, and now it's not okay.
go to the website,endtheconfusion.org, and read the benefitsof getting an annual screening mammogramstarting at age 40. in my opinion, thatis the best guideline for any woman who isat age 40 or older, to come in and get herscreening mammogram every year. mammography saves lives. (gentle upbeat music) ♪♪
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