The need to get one’s breast screened is gaining a lot of prominence from medical practitioners because early detection of any anomaly can prevent the contraction of breast related health complications such as cancer.
Breast screening can be described as a periodic check of the breast by medical practitioners to detect if there are changes in the breast, which could be symptoms of cancer. One does not need to feel pains or notice physical changes of the breast before consulting medical assistance. A simple examination of the breast by oneself every morning could save your life since this would prompt immediate medical advice if there are some changes in the breast.
Medically, every woman must visit a health facility for breast screening at least every three months to the check status of the breast. This is because it is easy to cure breast complications at the early stages than when the disease outgrows the competence of our current healthcare systems. As the saying goes a stitch in time saves nine.
There are so many different ways of screening the breast in the health facilities but the most common ones are manual-examination and the mammogram. The mammogram involves the use of sophisticated machines to examine the breast. This method assists medical practitioners to detect any remote anomaly in the breast that could develop into cancer even three years before it manifests physically.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States of America, breast cancer is a disease in which cells in the breast grow out of control. A breast is made up of three main parts: lobules, ducts and connective tissue. The ducts are tubes that carry milk to the nipple; lobules are glands that produce milk and the connective tissue is made up of nerves, veins, arteries that help the breast to hold in place. Breast cancer can develop at any of these parts of the breast. The kind of breast cancer depends on which cells in the breast turn into cancer.
Breast cancer is of different kinds; the most common ones are Invasive Ductal Carcinoma and Invasive Lobular Carcinoma. In the case of Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, the cancer cells grow outside the ducts into other parts of the breast tissue, whereas the cancer cells spread from the lobules to the breast tissues that are close by when one contracts Invasive Lobular Carcinoma. Both of these cancers can spread or metastasize to other parts of the body.
Moving away from this scientific jargon and the knowledge of breast cancers, I would like to share the reality of the disease as a young girl growing up and witnessing two of the most important women in my life suffering from the disease. Unfortunately, both could not survive because they were diagnosed at the last stages when the disease has spread to other parts of their bodies due to a lack of knowledge on the disease.
If my memory serves me right, one of them started complaining about a lump in the breast but instead of seeking immediate medical attention she rather visited traditional herbal practitioners and administered all sorts of concoctions till the disease got out of hand.
It started with a boil that developed into a sore and it lingered on for some time. Regrettably, before she sought medical assistance it had completely spread beyond cure.
The two might have survived if they were aware of the disease and the precautionary measures to take. The lesson this thought all the women around these two beautiful souls was regular self-examination and medical screening of the breast to avoid this unfortunate event from recurring.
Therefore, a woman should take a keen interest in the health of their breast to help stop breast cancer. This is because breast cancer is treatable when it is noticed in the infant stage.
Schandorf-Woode Adelaide, ISD
