Here's my story, the story of AWARENESS!

It was the year 2006, when I received the results from a routine mammogram that read: “probably benign: needs to be reevaluated in 6 months.” This is a result that no one wants to receive... is it benign or not? would I have cancer or not? imagine repeating that in your head every day for 6 months? What kind of result is that?

I had lost a lot of weight, 40 pounds to be exact. I was eating very healthy, exercising, and taking good care of my self. The doctor said that, because I have Dense Breast Tissue and had lost so much weight since my last mammogram, the radiologist couldn't know for sure that, what she was seeing in the x-ray, were in fact cysts or just my dense tissue. For this reason I had to wait six months to repeat the mammogram.

Meanwhile, one of my sisters in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She have had her ovaries and uterus removed a few years before and "supposedly" didn't have cancer then. Now she had develop cancer of the peritoneum, with metastasis in the liver... Fortunately, she overcame all odds and even though it came back two years ago, she's now cancer free, and we pray for her to stay that way.

I'm telling you all these because the doctors never found the primary cancer on my sister in-law, but for what I have read, the type of cancer she developed is very common on women that had ovarian cancer.

So all these, her diagnosis, my crazy results, and the facts I read on-line, were all wondering around in my head, which motivated me to create AWARENESS. At first, it was a mean for me to release stress. Working with "mud" has tons of health benefits, and when one creates something beautiful out of something horrible, that in itself is healing.

 

Later on, when the piece was finished I wanted to display it in as many venues as I could hoping it would bring healing to the people that saw it, and inspire women to take a more proactive approach to stay healthy. Yet, since its conception, all I wanted was to donate it to women cancer.

Imaging what I felt, every time Awareness was juried into an exhibition and much more, when it received the Best in Sculpture award at the Manhattan Arts International at the HerStory online Competition, NYC, in 2009.

Recapitulating, I waited my six months patiently and went back for my mammogram and the results that time were: Negative. What a relief!

Ever since then, I go for my routine mammogram every year, but now they order a sonogram every time as well. Dense breast tissue tend to be the perfect environment for cysts, and I'm not the exception. I have a few they need to check on every time. I also do my monthly self-exam and that's how I have found the cysts. I just try to make sure they don't grow...which is not an easy task...

Last year, after it appeared in the news that mammograms were not really necessary every year and so forth, I still went for my regular check up, but, at the time, my sonogram was not covered by my insurance. So, I changed insurance company. Let's see what happens this year! I'll keep you posted.

One thing that really bothers me is that why do we, women with Dense Breast Tissue, have to go through the radiation of a mammogram if it doesn't read our kind of breast tissue? I believe sonograms read better Dense Breast Tissue, though it still makes mistakes... in my humble opinion.

Non of the answers I have found out there have pleased me, not even that of my GYN. But still I'm here about to make my yearly appointment (Just got the postcard reminding me)...



Note: The ribbon in these pictures was the original I made, but unfortunately it got broken while the piece was drying. So I had to made a new one for it. This process was rather challenging because clay shrinks and when one wants pieces to fit together they have to be made at the same time, so the dry together. Since the body of the sculpture had already started to dry I had to put plastic on top of it and work the new ribbon, making it a little larger, so when it shrank it would fit perfectly, or close to perfect.