PORTLAND, Ore. — Most of us have a personal connection with breast cancer; a family member or a friend has had it or is currently fighting the disease. Or maybe it's you. Other than skin cancers, it is the most common cancer for women, affecting one in eight in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society.
Doctor Cory Donovan is a breast surgical oncologist with Legacy Health. She knows the challenges patients face and the needs they have, because she's been one.
"I was diagnosed in the first few months of my breast cancer fellowship, so I had already chosen to be a breast cancer surgeon," Johnson said.
The surgeon said getting through breast cancer goes beyond the medicine, the surgery or radiation, although those treatments offer life-saving results. There are other things that patients need.
"It's also helping their families get through this diagnosis, making sure their job is still there when they're on the back end, making sure their mental health is supported in any way that we can, because this is a real trauma for many patients," Donovan said.
Donovan said healthy lifestyle choices do help lower odds of getting breast cancer by a few percentage points, and it's important to recognize that. But she said it's also important for women with breast cancer not to blame themselves.
"What really swings the pendulum from one side to the other are things that we really don't have control over, mistakes that cells make when they copy themselves over from one generation to the next, so if you end up getting breast cancer I don't want you to carry the guilt that you made a choice that gave you this stupid lottery that you ended up with," Donovan said.
Advancements in treatments have made survival much more likely. The overall death rate is about 2.5%.
Still, the American Cancer Society estimates 310,720 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 2024, and 42,250 are expected to die from it.
'It's a lot. It's a lot to process'
Danyel Rogers has an especially difficult journey. Her breast cancer diagnosis came in July of 2022. Now the cancer has returned and spread.
"I went from a few months ago totally clear and then they scanned me again and the breast cancer had spread to my lungs so now I’m metastatic," Rogers said. "It's a lot. It's a lot to process and it's overwhelming when you look at death and life on the same path."
Through it all, Danyel remains determined to live her life fully, with help from her husband Mike, daughter Breanna, and their pups.
Danyel also expresses herself through her photography, focusing on other breast-cancer patients and survivors, building unity with unique and powerful Warrior Women Portraits.
"I've met some incredible, incredible women," Rogers said. "I will say that this is probably the best thing I've taken away from this diagnosis is the women that I've met, and not just the women, their caretakers too."
It takes a village, this month and year-round. Early detection is where it all starts, with monthly self-exams, and mammogram screenings for most women, beginning at age 40.
"The sooner they do find if there's something there the better chances that you have, so I always call up my friends, when they're like, 'oh, I’m too busy,' then I’m like, 'girlfriend, I just don't even want to hear that,'" Rogers said.
Donovan and Rogers both acknowledged that Breast Cancer Awareness Month can be an emotional and often difficult time for patients and survivors of beast cancer. That's why empathy and support are critical.
The American Cancer Society is holding a family friendly event this weekend called Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. It's this Sunday at 9 a.m. at the University of Portland campus in north Portland.