A University Hospital director completed her last chemo treatment Tuesday for her metastatic breast cancer. She wants to show women who have skipped screenings what they're risking as part of an awareness campaign called Pinktober.
– Shawn Velez conquered life head-on as a metastatic breast cancer patient and the ambulatory care director for University Health.The chemo hit her hard, causing extreme exhaustion and weakening her body to the point that she fractured her hip just by sitting too long on a car ride.
“It had already spread to the lymph nodes. And I thought to myself that if I hadn’t checked and found it, we could have progressed much further along,” Velez said. “We want to catch cancer small before the patient can feel it. That’s how we save lives, because the bigger it is, the more chances it can travel somewhere else,” said Dr. Sara Ortiz, interim medical director of mammography for University Health and UT Health San Antonio.
“Everybody knows, I’m like, ‘You need to check. You need to check, especially those with a high family history,’” Velez said.
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