Our Stories

Bilateral Mastectomy after ultrasound finds 2 cm tumor that mammogram missed!

Name:  Barb Levine-Ritterman

Date of Diagnosis: June 6, 2004

Age at Diagnosis: 51 

Stage: 2

Time from "normal" mammogram to cancer diagnosis: O months

How was cancer detected: Ultrasound

Barb's story:  Thank you for creating this site. I come from a high risk family - my mother and her sister both had breast cancer. I had lumpy breasts and many scares, starting at age 26. Biopsies started in my 40's. Thank goodness for an alert surgeon who required annual ultrasounds, plus being seen every 3 mo.s (surgeon visit, OB/GYN, ultrasound, mammogram). The ultrasound found the 2 cm tumor. The biopsy found cancer. The mammogram was NEGATIVE. I chose bilateral mastectomies. Surgery found positive nodes. I endured chemo, a life-threatening pneumonia from the chemo, radiation -- and my children were 6 & 9. Thank goodness for the surgeon and her ultrasound. I mostly wanted to say -- THANK YOU for your work. I read about it in this Sunday's New Haven Register. I'm happy to help in any way I can -- for all of us; and for our daughters (mine is 13 now).