By June Mathews
Beth Bullock followed the advice. Like clockwork, she went for her regular checkup every December, and she would have a mammogram at the same time.
“I was told I had dense tissue, which makes it harder to recognize breast cancer,” she said, “so I had a baseline mammogram at 35 and then one every year starting at age 40.”
As the time neared for her December 2022 appointment, however, Bullock learned that her physician, Dr. Sarah C. Davis, needed to be out of the office that day. Bullock had planned to find out whether she was going into menopause. So she decided to wait until the next available appointment, which was at the end of March.
“I’ve been seeing Dr. Davis for years, and we have a great rapport,” she said. “We’re about the same age, so I felt like we were going through all this together, and I didn’t want to see another doctor or a nurse practitioner.”
On March 28, Bullock went for her checkup and mammogram. The following Monday, April 3, she got a call from the doctor’s office. A small spot had been found. That Thursday, April 6, she returned for another mammogram and an ultrasound.
“Within two hours after I got back to work, someone called to say, ‘We’re sending you for a biopsy,’” she said. “The biopsy was done April 10, and on May 1, I had a lumpectomy. I started radiation on June 1 and finished on June 22. Everything was so quick.”
One of the most amazing things to Bullock about the whole experience is she never felt anything indicating sickness.
“Going for radiation was surreal because I’m sitting in the waiting room looking around at all these people who are much worse off than I was, and I started thinking I should be the one waiting for somebody to come out and not the one going in,” she said.
Because the cancer was caught so early, she never felt a lump. At only one centimeter, the cancer barely made itself known.
Bullock gives high marks to her medical team, from Dr. Timothy Bullock, the surgeon who performed the lumpectomy, to radiation oncologist Dr. Susan Salter.
“I’m glad to be at St. Vincent’s,” she said. “Everyone there made it so easy, even doing the radiation. I would come to work, leave in time for treatment at 10 a.m., and I might be gone an hour and 10 minutes to an hour and 30 minutes. They were so quick and prompt.”
During the next five years, Bullock wiIl have twice-a-year testing – an MRI each September and a mammogram each March. She will also take the cancer pill Letrozole for five years.
Realizing that early detection was key in her case, Bullock hopes that other women can learn from her experience and include mammograms in their regular health routine. She believes that reluctance to have mammograms stems from fear of what they may reveal.
“But if someone has breast cancer, it’s so much better to find out early,” she said. “I’ve heard women say they haven’t had a mammogram in a long time, but now they were thinking about having one because of my experience. My mammogram did exactly what it was supposed to do.”
For someone who has learned they have breast cancer, Bullock offers these insights:
Lean on your support network.
In addition to husband Chris, whom she calls her “biggest cheerleader,” Bullock had tremendous support from her parents and in-laws, a host of family-like friends, her work family, her church family and her and her husband’s ballroom dancing group.
“There were so many people just reaching out and sending notes of encouragement, texts and that kind of thing, and it helped,” she said.
Give grace to people who say the wrong things.
“A lot of people try to say the right things, but they don’t know what to say,” Bullock said. “I’ve been guilty of that, and now I think, ‘Wow, I’ll never say that again. I didn’t realize how horrible it sounded.’ Just know people are trying be nice, even though the words don’t always come out right.”
Don’t Google
“The only other thing I will say is for women who learn they have breast cancer and are looking for answers: Don’t ever Google anything. If you Google ‘breast cancer’ and ‘prognosis’ you get all sorts of things that may never happen, especially if it’s caught early.”
