Sisterhood of survival: Former Greenwood mayor urges women to be aggressive with their health

She had gone years at a time without having a mammogram to screen for breast cancer.

But when her daughter-in-law was diagnosed with the disease five years ago, at age 37, Margaret McGovern was forced to think twice before she skipped again.

About a year ago, as she readied to embark on an annual six-month RV journey with her husband, McGovern, a former Greenwood mayor, made her appointment. Everything looked fine.

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McGovern and her husband, Phil, were almost to Florida when the call came from Franciscan Health Indianapolis. They were asking her to make a follow-up appointment.

She is now part of the sisterhood of breast cancer survivors. After conducting her own study of the options she was presented and undergoing multiple surgeries, she is urging other women who are diagnosed to ask questions and take loved ones to appointments to help them manage your health care.

If you’ve skipped your annual mammogram, make an appointment and go, McGovern, age 71, urged.

“It saved my life,” McGovern said. “It saved me a whole bunch of pain and suffering.”

Her cancer was not a lump she would have found in a self-exam. In fact, initially, doctors weren’t too concerned about the finding on the mammogram in late fall of 2015.

She had her medical records sent to Florida, where she and Phil were spending time. Doctors in Florida ordered a diagnostic mammogram but were not concerned about the suspicious cells, and said she would not need to hurry into treatment, even if it was malignant.

McGovern trusted that, and was not concerned. They came home to Greenwood in June, and she eventually had another mammogram which showed changes from her test in Florida. A biopsy showed that she had cancer contained to the milk ducts. She was Stage 0.

She had a lumpectomy and went home the same day.

Then came another call. The surgeon was not able to get clear margins, which means cancer-free areas in the remaining tissue around the removed cancer. Now, they wanted to do a mastectomy.

McGovern wasn’t so sure. She questioned whether that treatment was too aggressive, whether doctors should watch and wait.

Then she noticed a friend’s name on one of the medical reports, and called him. Have the mastectomy, he urged, because once the cancer leaves the milk ducts, you don’t know how fast it will grow, he told her, noting the cancer was odd-shaped, which makes it riskier.

Her hesitation waned.

The next decision was whether to have a double mastectomy as the plastic surgeon recommended, or a single mastectomy.

At her age, she wasn’t terribly concerned about her appearance after a single mastectomy, and she wasn’t eager to have any surgery more than was necessary for her health. She opted for a single mastectomy with reconstruction, plus additional work on the healthy breast for her long-term appearance. The mastectomy was in August.

She did not have chemotherapy or radiation, but will take Tamoxifen, a drug that blocks hormones from causing certain types of breast cancer, for five years. She has mammograms every six months.

She praises Franciscan for the kind, considerate and caring experiences she had with all healthcare providers.

“It went a long way to making me feel comfortable about everything,” McGovern said.

She never knew she would become part of a sisterhood of survivors with a connection that sometimes needs no words. Wearing a survivor T-shirt in a store elicited a hug or claps from strangers. She also had a connection with a woman who had lost her hair and was using a motorized cart while both were waiting to pick up medicine at a pharmacy.

“We automatically had this bond,” McGovern said.

In sharing a written account of her ordeal, McGovern, who served one term as a Democratic mayor of Greenwood in the 1990s, urges women to not delay.

“Had I not been having regular mammograms, who knows when the cancer might have been discovered. If it had depended on my feeling a lump or having other outward signs of cancer, the odds are good that it might have become invasive, spreading to lymph nodes, lungs, liver, bones or brain.

One in eight women in the United States will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. Eighty-five percent, like me, have no family history of breast cancer.

More than 100 women die every day in the U.S. from breast cancer. Regular mammograms can save lives. Have you had your mammogram this year?”