Breast Cancer Awareness – plus action!

This year’s celebration of Breast Cancer Awareness Month has a challenge for you: in addition to wearing pink to raise awareness, you are invited to also take action.

The national campaign, sponsored by the National Breast Cancer Foundation Inc., calls for support for women, especially those facing breast cancer, and encourages donations to support additional research or assistance for women on a journey to overcome breast cancer.

Swope Health welcomes you to take action, too. For example:

• Prioritize your own health! Make an appointment with us for your breast screening. Call 816-523-5800 to schedule. The service fee is $35 (and a sliding fee scale is available).
• Coordinate with a friend and bring her with you for her exam, too. Or encourage other women in your life to do the same.
• Perform a self-examination and build a routine of regular self-checks. If you’re not sure how to do a self-check, talk with our clinicians when you come in for a visit.
• Review the information to become knowledgeable of the earliest indicators of breast cancer. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers a great resource on Symptoms of Breast Cancer with answers to common questions.
• Share kindness and strength with the women around you. After all, breast cancer touches one in eight women.

The annual awareness campaign is important because each year, about 300,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed, according to the American Cancer Society. Every year, about 42,000 men and 500 men die from breast cancer, says the CDC.  And, Black women have a higher death rate from breast cancer than all other women.

Breast screenings can be lifesaving. Screenings offer a chance at early detection of breast disease or cancer, and earlier detection means better chances of treatment and recovery. That’s why having a mammogram, the screening test for breast cancer, is so important.

Swope Health performs mammograms in the radiology lab. Mammograms are low-dose X-ray scans that can identify changes in breast tissue. Most appointments take about 30 minutes.

To make an appointment, call us: 816-523-5800.