Breast cancer.

Essay by polish00A+, December 2003

download word file, 9 pages 4.2

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On an ordinary day, an ordinary woman turns off the ignition in the parking lot of her doctor's office for a routine check-up. She enters the sterile building, signs in, and waits while flipping through the tattered pages of any choice 'female inspired' magazine until the nurse, clad in white from head to toe, calls her name. The patient enters a new room and, as instructed, changes into a traditional examination gown. She reverts back into the waiting process until her long-time doctor briskly emerges through the door. They sum-up the small talk and he begins the breast examination. He suddenly stops and asks her if she is aware of the lump he has just detected in her breast. As her throat swells, she takes a deep breath and shakes her head while replying with a scared and shocked "No." Soon after, the nurse escorts her to another room where a mammogram is to be performed.

The woman will soon discover something she was not planning on learning today; this woman, this ordinary woman, has breast cancer. This unfortunate scenario is not uncommon in our society.

Breast cancer is an intense and widespread disease. According to Dr. John R. Lee, the disease will affect one in eight women, which means that fifteen percent of women who die of cancer are dying specifically of breast cancer (par. 3). These life threatening cells change and grow out of control, sometimes spreading throughout the entire body, causing fatalities. The malignancies are the most common cause of cancer related death for women ages eighteen to fifty-four and the most common cause of death above any for women between the ages of forty-five and fifty (Lee par. 36). The American Cancer Society reports that the incidence rates have increased over the years. In 1973, when...