‘They're taking away all our tools.'

Vanessa Murray, 49, believes she'd be dead if it weren't for her annual mammogram.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2008, when she went in for her regular screening. Doctors found micro-calcifications, she said, a sign of a type of breast cancer that does not appear as a lump someone can feel. A biopsy confirmed the cancer, and in February she had a lumpectomy. When doctors determined that may not have been effective, she went back on Valentine's Day for a mastectomy.

The surgery was followed by chemotherapy and radiation, she said.

"Without the mammogram it wouldn't have been detected," she said. "I felt perfectly fine. I was physically fit, I eat right, exercise, do all the things you're supposed to do. I had no symptoms of anything. No pain, nothing. ... It was strictly the mammogram that saved my life."

Murray went for a mammogram this month, she said, because she found a lump under the scar on the breast that was removed. She wanted to be sure that it wasn't anything to be concerned about.

Murray is upset about these recommendations. She said she yelled at the television set when she first heard the news.

"According to their recommendation, I wouldn't be old enough to have my first mammogram," Murray said. "It's like they took a step backward. ... They're taking away all our tools."

‘Make sure you're doing the self-checks.'

Nancy Helker was 34 years old when she found a lump in her right breast. It was late 1990, and she was doing a breast self exam. She ignored the lump for a little while, but when it didn't go away, she went to her doctor.

"He was a little surprised because I was fairly young," she said. "He just went into doctor mode and did all the testing."

A mammogram and biopsy showed cancer, Helker said. Doctors removed the lump and took out lymph nodes on her right side. Surgery was followed by chemotherapy and radiation. Five years later, she had a hysterectomy, for a small amount of cancer found there.

Without the self-exam, Helker doesn't know when - or if - her cancer would have been found. Now 53, Helker said she worries about her daughters.

"Are they going to wait until they're 50 years old?" she said. "I don't think so. I'm already after them, to make sure you're doing the self-checks."

‘Little did I know when I'd go in they would find something.'

Two years ago, Karen Barth got a letter from her insurance company, saying that it would cover a mammogram the year she turned 35.

Two of her aunts have had breast cancer - Nancy Helker, who was diagnosed at 34, and Sue Spaulding, whose cancer was found at age 47. Four months after Barth turned 35, she scheduled a mammogram.

"I thought ‘Oh, should I go? Should I not go?'" she said. "Little did I know when I'd go in they would find something."

That screening mammogram turned up calcifications, she said, which were a sign of the type of cancer they determined that she had. The cancer was caught very early - Barth said she was a stage 0 - and doctors immediately worked with her to address it.

Barth had a mastectomy within three weeks of her diagnosis. Choosing a mastectomy - which removed the entire breast, and not just the cancerous portion - meant she didn't need radiation or chemotherapy.

But the 37-year-old now has a mammogram every year, she said. Both post-cancer checks have been fine.