MEMPHIS, Tenn — As Breast Cancer Awareness Month winds down, ABC24 spoke with survivor Angela Patterson Donnerson, who told us about her journey and wanted to spread the word for women to get their yearly screenings.
“I was walking around. I was working, raising my family, just living my life and I did not know I was sick. I did not know I had breast cancer. That’s a scary thing right there,” Donnerson explained.
According to the American Cancer Society, breast cancer is the one of most common cancers in women in the U.S. Data shows the overall average risk of a woman in the U.S. getting breast cancer at some point in her life is about 13%, which means there is a 1 in 8 chance she will develop breast cancer.
It is not just women. While less common, the American Cancer Society states the lifetime risk of men getting this disease is about 1 in 833.
Donnerson said she did not have a history of breast cancer, which is why she wants to spread the word to go get a mammogram, because it saved her life.
“I didn’t know I was going to be a cancer patient,” Donnerson stated.
Life changed right before her eyes when she had a dream. Donnerson said she dreamed that her iron was low, which was the only sign she needed to go see a doctor.
“They checked my iron, and then they called me back to the hospital and said I needed to have an iron infusion. Like it was an emergency,” Donnerson said.
Little did she know, that was just the beginning of her journey.
“I was waiting to get discharged, and the doctor came back into the room. I believe God sent him back into the room to ask me two questions that saved my life. He asked me, ‘Mrs. Donnerson, is there anything else that we need to know? Is there anything else you want to share?’”
Donnerson explained that she felt a lump in her right breast within the past 30 days.
“He said, this is going to trump everything. We’re going to schedule you a mammogram,” Donnerson stated.
She found out through the Baptist Women's Health Center that she was in the early stages of breast cancer, in November 2020; however, the shocking part of it all, the disease was not in her family history.
“I didn’t have no point of reference or nobody close that I could say okay, this came from here or there … I didn’t have that. It just happened to me,” Donnerson said.
After getting a mastectomy, and going through chemotherapy and radiation, she was cancer-free in 2021.
Baptist Women’s Health Center Genetic Counselor Dacia Lipaea said there are many risk factors that play into getting breast cancer, which is why every woman should get their yearly screenings starting at age 40.
“A lot of the times, we don’t know about these risk factors until we do go in and get screening for breast cancer” Lipaea said. “So that’s another reason why it’s important to do or start going in for our annual screening and continue getting those, because the doctors we go in to see for are the experts in that and they’re going to be able to give us more direction on any specific risks for us as individual women.”
Just being a woman and all that comes with it, including hormonal changes, breast density, menopause history, and genetics are just a few risk factors Lipaea said can tie into developing breast cancer.
The Baptist Women’s Health Center also offers breast cancer screenings and a comprehensive range of services.