“I didn’t feel a lump or anything, but that notice I got in the mail stuck in the back of my mind. I started to think about getting that mammogram. The unknown made me want to get checked. As soon as the screens came back and showed something, I knew I had cancer. They didn’t even have to say the words.”
— Julie Smith WARREN DILLAWAY / The Star Beacon
Published October 11, 2006 07:23 am - GENEVA - - When Conneaut resident Julie Smith gathered the mail from her mailbox one cold January day, her mind was on the falling snow, the cold air and the frozen lake. As Smith, 43, quickly sifted thr ...
Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Star Beacon
Survivor Thankful for program. University Hospitals-Geneva Medical Center offers free mammograms to women ages 40 to 60 without insurance
By MARGIE TRAX PAGE
Staff Writer
mtrax@starbeacon.com
GENEVA - - When Conneaut resident Julie Smith gathered the mail from her mailbox one cold January day, her mind was on the falling snow, the cold air and the frozen lake.
As Smith, 43, quickly sifted through the bills, advertisements and letters, her eye fell on a notice for free mammograms for women without insurance. That notice may have saved her life.
The University Hospitals-Geneva Medical Center offers free mammograms to women ages 40 to 60 without insurance through a $60,000 grant from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The grant supports the mammography program and educational programs.
"This is our fifth grant from the northeast Ohio branch of the foundation, and it is a significant amount of money," community education director for GMC Lori Slimmer said.
"We are targeting the younger population and going into the high schools to teach prevention and early detection," Slimmer said. "But mammograms are part of early detection," she said.
Smith, who is adopted and doesn't know her biological family's medical history, began to think about the possibility of breast cancer.
"I didn't feel a lump or anything, but that notice I got in the mail stuck in the back of my mind. I started to think about getting that mammogram," Smith said. "The unknown made me want to get checked," she said.
Smith got her mammogram in February.
"As soon as the screens came back and showed something, I knew I had cancer. They didn't even have to say the words," Smith said.
The mammogram showed that though the cancer wasn't advanced, it was widespread, affecting more than one-third of the breast. Smith had an emergency mastectomy and radiation.
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