I'm Too Young To Have Breast Cancer!

“Nora found it hard to believe that she couldn't just go to the drug store, spend twelve bucks, and be better in a week.”

“It's not aspirating,” the physician's assistant said in an even tone. “You're healthy and you're only twenty-six. You're too young to have anything to worry about.” She patted Paulette on the back and nudged her out the door.”

“I don't want to talk to you about that until you're thirty-five” the doctor said. “Just put it out of your mind, it's not an issue. Mammograms aren't that accurate until you're at least thirty-five years old.”

“When Anne reached her supervisor and told him that she had breast cancer, he said, ‘Oh, I'm sorry, but will you still be able to join us for a conference call tomorrow?’”

“How unfair, she joked, how unfair to have to worry about wigs and scarves and to still have to shave her legs.”

“You're so young,” said the doctor, who had been a dancer herself. “Given your age and the painful swelling you've been experiencing around the time of your periods, it's probably just a cyst.” “But my mother died three years ago of breast cancer, at fifty-one. She'd been in remission for seven or eight years; she was first diagnosed when she was forty-one. Isn't that something to worry about?” “But you're just so young,” reiterated the doctor. “It's probably just a cyst.”