You say you’ve been putting off getting a mammogram because it just takes too long? Or it hurts too much? Meet Ellen Stucker, Survivor Chair of the local Race for the Cure, and a 17-year breast cancer survivor (that’s Ellen in the red shirt in the photo, laughing at a recent Flying Colors cancer support group meeting). She wrote this essay “in honor of my mother and her courage: Alma Wilson Holroyd, 1/27/23-7/2/95.” Yes, Ellen’s mother died of breast cancer. Read on, and let Ellen change your mind …

It happened to me again this week. I was sitting in the waiting room of Baptist Hospital, overlooking the fountain in the tranquility garden and dreading the upcoming tests.

Soon I heard the old refrain: “I’ve been here two hours already, and I still haven’ had my ultrasound.” Answered by …

… “I know what you mean. I have a long drive back to Arkansas, and I don’t want to get home after dark.”

We are here for our annual mammograms, and, in this world of instant gratification and drive-through-everything, we expect these procedures to be quick. Get it done, and get out.

Yet here’s a startling fact that I’ve confirmed with a physician: This hospital detects a breast cancer every single day. EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Knowing the disease is that prevalent, then, wouldn’ you want to take the time necessary for those physicians to find your breast cancer?

As a 17-year survivor, I can assure you that I do.

You see, my mother had breast cancer, also, when she was in her early thirties. This was before the age of mammography and chemotherapy and many of the other scientific discoveries of the late 20th century. With only a 50 percent chance of survival, my mother was blessed with another thirty-odd years of life until her second breast cancer struck. This time the tumor was deep in her breast, and her oncologist later explained it was missed again and again.

Mother said she would walk into the mammography unit, and the technicians would tell her that “they knew she had better things to do with her time than to hang around there all day; they would just take a couple of pictures and have her on her way.” Mother, of course, told me she had nothing better to do with her time that day.

She died of invasive breast cancer that metastasized to her lungs at age 72. Had her breast cancer not been missed again and again by the staff, my mother would probably be alive today.

Breast cancer is a complex disease. Many times breast tissue is dense and complex. Mammograms are difficult to read, and it takes years of skill and training to do it well.

The hospital where I have my mammograms surely must miss a few cancers here and there. There are no infallible institutions. But, overall, I feel completely comfortable that I am getting quality care. I know many of these physicians personally, and they are caring people who want to give every woman a fighting chance by detecting her breast cancer at the beginning stages, when it is 98 percent curable.

So for all you women who say you don’t want to have a mammogram, because it hurts: it’s time to pull up those big-girl panties and understand just how much cancer hurts. It hurts in ways you cannot fathom without going through the experience. And it doesn’t stop at hurting just you — it hurts your family, your friends and in the larger sense, your community. Unfortunately, I can speak from too much experience. I’m a 17-year survivor, but I’ve lost my mother and my paternal grandmother and seen my aunt devastated by this disease.

So the next time you are tempted to complain about having to wait to have your mammogram/ultrasound read, I hope you will think of my mother’s story. Then, ask yourself this question: Just what is it that’s more important than taking care of yourself?

For more information on mammograms, or to connect with the local survivors’ network, call Ellen at 901-382-7253.