Mom of 2 Delayed Cancer Screening Because of Covid-19; Two Years Later, She Was Diagnosed With Breast Cancer

Ashley has another important message: Don't delay your cancer screening like she did.

"I didn't have regular check-ups during Covid because it's not worth the risk of going in," she said. "But I had consistently been noticing changes and I didn't want to keep crying wolf."

Ashley's Breast Cancer Diagnosis

In February 2019, Ashley felt a lump in her breast. Rightfully alarmed, she immediately sought medical attention.

"They just said that it was dense breast tissue. 'You're fine,'" she said. "I was like, 'Oh, phew.'"

Ashley proceeded to go on with her life, and just like everyone else around the world, her life was turned upside down in March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the United States. And like most people, she delayed her cancer screening because of the pandemic. (More on that later.)

"How many women have put themselves on the back burner during this pandemic because they've been doing all the things?" she said.

However, in the fall of 2021, more than two years after Ashley first felt her breast lump, she visited her doctor for a routine physical. Even though she was in her mid-30s, she requested a mammogram because she felt something was still off. (Women aren't required to start breast cancer screenings with mammogram technology until their 40s.)

That's when she received the news she had always feared: she had breast cancer.

"I was right," Ashley told the television station. "My darn body was telling me and I was just trying to reassure it and I was right."

Once receiving her diagnosis, she began chemotherapy treatment. She recently completed her fifth of six total rounds. She'll also have a mastectomy (a surgical operation to remove a breast) next month.

In order to encourage other women to get themselves checked for breast cancer, Ashley has been documenting her cancer battle on her blog, Grow Through What You Go Through.

"Get looked at and insist on it," Ashley said. "Be persistent because your life is so valuable and it's worth living. Your kids need you and we need you here."

Ashley has two children, according to her blog's About Me page: Lincoln, 8, and Maya, 6. She's been with her husband, Tyler, for about 17 years and they’ve been married for 10 of those years.

Decline in Cancer Screenings Due to Covid

Covid-19 wreaked havoc on literally everything, including doctor visits. People were scared of catching the virus, especially at the height of the pandemic, so they canceled or postponed their routine doctor visits and check-ups.

In fact, during an event that The Washington Post hosted in June of last year, Dr. Norman "Ned" Sharpless, director of the National Cancer Institute, said there was a 95% decline in various kinds of cancer screenings, including mammography, Pap smears, as well as screenings for lung and colon cancer. Dr. Sharpless compared that to his initial "worst case assumptions," such as a 75% decrease in mammograms.

In addition, NCI predicted last year that over the course of the next decade, about 10,000 excess deaths will occur from breast and colon cancer in the United States alone as a result of pandemic-related delays in screening and treatment.

More recently, a study published last month in the American Cancer Society journal Cancer, researchers found that cancer screening rates have mostly remained below the pre-Covid pandemic levels, at least through early 2021.

“Cancer screening is still in need of urgent attention,” researchers wrote, “and the screening resources made available online may help facilities to close critical gaps and address screenings missed in 2020.” Ashley was one of those missed screenings.

While cancer screenings dropped as a whole during the pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection program found that breast cancer screenings declined significantly among communities of color 84% among Hispanic women and 98% among American Indian and Alaskan Native women.

Screenings for breast and cervical cancer among all women dropped 87% and 84%, respectively, during the height of the pandemic.

It's Important to Continue Cancer Screenings Through COVID-19

Screening recommendations can vary depending on the type of cancer, and your risk factors, so it's important to pay attention to guidelines. For example, guidelines recommend that women with an average risk of breast cancer have an annual mammograms between the ages of 45 and 54.

"We know that cancer prevention works, and what we don't want is a huge fallout because of COVID that patients are so afraid to leave their home that they're missing their most important tests, like their screening mammogram," Dr. Elizabeth Comen, a medical oncologist specializing in treating breast cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, previously told SurvivorNet.

As you can see, it's extremely important to both pay attention to these guidelines but also push for check-ups if you feel that something is wrong with your body, just as Ashley is advocating for.

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