Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women. In fact, every 1 in 8 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime, but not everyone’s story is the same.
“I’m Richanne Mankey. I live in Defiance, I’m the president of Defiance College. I’m 60 years old, and I am a breast cancer survivor.”
Dr. Mankey was diagnosed with early-stage 1-A breast cancer last year. The diagnoses came after an annual mammogram appointment at the St. Rita’s Women’s clinic. She started getting mammograms at the age of 35, which is just around the age that doctors recommend starting the regular testing.
Nicole Nelson MD, the director of the Women’s Wellness Center says, “The reason we recommend coming every year and starting at that age is when we can catch these tumors smaller and earlier, the treatments are much easier for our patients.”
That was found to be true for Mankey. She says she was out a total of two weeks from working at the college between her surgery and internal radiation treatments. “I’m fortunate,” says Mankey. “I was diagnosed early stage, I had all the right markers, and other people are not so lucky. I absolutely know that I am fortunate.”
Mankey says opting for the 3-D mammogram if given the choice is important, as her cancer might have been too small to see on a regular scan. “They would have never found my cancer had I not had a 3D mammogram,” says Mankey.
There aren’t many risk factors linked to breast cancer, and over 80 percent of women diagnosed will have no family history of the disease.
“Just being a woman in and of itself is the largest risk factor for developing breast cancer,” says Nelson. “And that’s why screening is so important.”
Mankey now lives as an advocate of breast cancer awareness and urges the women around her to get scanned— it could just save their lives.
