Edward's Story

Name:  Rita (by Edward, surviving spouse) 
State: California
Date of Diagnosis:  July 6, 2012
Age of Diagnosis: 62
Stage of Diagnosis:  Stage 4
Time from "normal" mammogram to diagnosis:  One Month
How was cancer detected?: by Rita 

Rita's Story (as told by Edward)

My wife discovered a mass in her right breast while exercising at her early A.M. boot camp. It was a month after another "favorable" mammogram report.  Within days it was determined to be stage 4 cancer to her liver and bones. Rita was extremely fit and seemingly healthy. She had never been told that her pretty breasts were heterogeneously dense. Despite seriously elevated liver enzymes and "innumerable" lesions in her liver seen on CT scan, her liver enzymes were not tested again for over five weeks. When the tests were done two days before treatment was to begin we were told her liver was now too compromised to allow effective chemo. The love of my life died 19 days later, only 62 days after diagnosis. The CA law mandating women be informed about their density status came too late, and I remain anguished in the knowledge that, had Rita been a Kaiser patient in CT, she would have learned of her status in 2009, and we certainly would have pursued alternative screening methods. July was the first anniversary of her death. We were together for almost 40 years.  If we had only known more.