Even professional cheerleaders get cancer
Meet former 76ers Cheerleader Sharon Steidler (the dancer on the right). Hands down, Sharon’s the most talented dancer I’ve ever met. (We were on the 76ers dance team together.) A picture of health, too. Sharon’s story is timely as it relates to this week’s headlines about the Mammogram Storm. In short, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force reversed previous advice and recommended that women in their 40s not at high risk for breast cancer forgo mammograms. Basically, the thinking is that the slight benefits of early detection in women in their 40s (risk of dying of cancer drops from 3% to 2.7%) does not outweigh the “costs” defined partly as stress and unnecessary X rays and biopsies. More than half of women ages 40-49 will have a false-positive mammogram during a decade of annual screening leading to additional X-Rays and biopsies.
This debate about whether women should be screened before the age of 50 has been going on since mammograms became all the rage. The Philadelphia Inquirer calls the debate “scientifically unresolvable.” And frankly most doctors interviewed recently say they’ll continue to give referrals for women who want a mammogram. So it’s unclear whether this week’s recommendations will have any long term impact at all.
One thing is clear, however. Some women are outraged, particularly those with a personal story about the benefits of early detection in a young woman. This brings us back to Sharon. Sharon was diagnosed with Stage III Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. Thankfully, she’s doing well today. I asked her to share her story with us well before the recent recommendations were released. I was more interested in helping Sharon find some purpose in her experience while exploring how someone like Sharon (a self-described “non science” person) became well informed and quite articulate about all things “breast cancer”. Here’s her story.
I met Darlene when we were both members of the Philadelphia 76′ers dance team. Dream Team, if you will. This was way back in 1991!!! Ahh…So much has changed since then! The plot thickens! (more…)
