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Nancy's Chalkboard: blogging and blabbing about breasts and whatever else Nancy fancies

Nancy's Chalkboard Blog

  • Waiting To Die

    A sister-in-law and friend's much too early death and a planning of my mom's future death have given me pause. At these rare times, I become philosophical and reflective about the meaning of life as I too wait to die.

  • Meds & Movement: My Breast Cancer Treatment Plan

    As my surgery drains dangled from my workout jersey, I gingerly placed one sneaker in front of the other and walked. My three-minute measured routine eventually turned into eight minutes and within a month I was back to completing my three-mile goal, albeit not breaking any former records

  • Mammography: Just Some of the Facts Ma'am!

    An informed decision about such a personal health issue as breast cancer screening and prevention can only be made after receiving all the facts!

  • What Happens in Vegas is Exposed!

    Bombarded with busts and breasts before I entered Caesar's Palace, I marveled at such a perfect setting for the National Consortium of Breast Centers (NBCB) annual conference. This was my first NCBC conference, and my purpose was to bring attention to MY breasts -- specifically one of them -- my extremely dense left breast.

Are You Dense? Fact #1: Breast density is one of the strongest predictors of the failure of mammography screening to detect cancer.

Are You Dense? Fact #2: Two-thirds of pre-menopausal women and 40% of post-menopausal women have dense breast tissue.

Are You Dense? Fact #3: Adding more sensitive tests to mammography significantly increase detection of invasive cancers that are small and node negative.

Are You Dense? Fact #4: American College of Radiology describes women with "Dense Breast Tissue" as having a higher than average risk of Breast Cancer.

Are You Dense? Fact #5: While a mammogram detects 98% of cancers in women with fatty breasts, it finds only 48% in women with dense breasts.

Are You Dense? Fact #6: A woman at average risk and a woman at high risk have an EQUAL chance of having their cancer masked by mammogram.

Are You Dense? Fact #7: Women with dense breasts who had breast cancer have a four times higher risk of recurrence than women with less-dense breasts.

Are You Dense? Fact #8: A substantial proportion of Breast Cancer can be attributed to high breast density alone.

Are You Dense? Fact #9: Cancer turns up five times more often in women with extremely dense breasts than those with the most fatty tissue.

Are You Dense? Fact #10: There are too many women who are unaware of their breast density, believe their “Happy Gram” when it reports no significant findings and are at risk of receiving a later stage cancer diagnosis.