I was on FaceTime with my family, laughing about something I can’t even remember now, when I felt it. I was doing that thing women do, half-present in conversation, half-aware of a tenderness in my chest I’d been trying to ignore, when my fingers landed on a small lump in my right breast, close to my nipple. I thought to myself, I’m only 32 (33 now), and there is no history of breast cancer in my family. I thought I was exempt, but I was wrong.
I filed this discovery away as a mental note to deal with later. But later that night, I did what every person with a concerning symptom does and shouldn’t do: I opened Google. That was the beginning of weeks of spiraling. I researched every possible cause, every worst-case scenario, every story that confirmed my fear and every one that didn’t. I read until I convinced myself it was nothing and then read more until I convinced myself it was something more serious. For weeks, I sat with the lump and the anxiety before eventually, I ran out of excuses and made an appointment with my primary care physician.
She recommended I get a mammogram, so I immediately made that appointment for the same week. There was a sense of urgency that came over me after learning more about how common breast cancer is. I had no idea what I was walking into when I reached the mammogram center. The facility was enormous, and the waiting room was full. It made me kind of sad actually, to know that so many others were filled with the same unknowing that took over me. The exam room was the coldest one I’ve ever been in. The whole process felt pretty daunting but I was eager for some answers.
Nothing could have prepared me for what the exam actually felt like. It was a combination of a physician picking up, repositioning, then continuously pressing my breasts onto a machine over and over to capture all the required imaging, all while I was standing up. The pressure was something I didn’t anticipate, and I also wasn’t prepared for the longest ultrasound I’ve ever endured. It was uncomfortable and nerve-wracking, but completely necessary.
I waited a week before I learned that the lump is benign, but it doesn’t end there. My lump is too small to be removed, but large enough to require regular monitoring, so I have to get rescanned every six months to keep an eye on it. What started as a scare became a permanent addition to my healthcare routine.
About 1 in 8 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime, the National Breast Cancer Foundation reports. Roughly 10% of new breast cancer cases occur in women under 45. And for Black women specifically, we are more likely to be diagnosed at younger ages, more likely to present with aggressive subtypes like triple-negative breast cancer, and face a mortality rate nearly 40% higher than white women.
What makes that even more complicated is that Black women are actually screening at relatively high rates, 86% of Black women ages 50 to 74 reported getting a mammogram within the past two years, according to Susan G. Komen data. The problem isn’t just access or avoidance. It’s that earlier, more aggressive disease is still slipping through and being caught late. I’m embarrassed to say I’m just learning all of this, and breast cancer is the most common cancer in American women.
And I’m not writing this to scare anyone. I’m writing it because I was scared, and because nobody told me that at 32, I could experience something that would change my relationship with my own body. Start the conversation with your doctor and do it sooner than you think you need to. Feel around, pay attention to the signs, and take health seriously.