• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

State's Early Cancer Detection Program Helps Women Beat the Odds

Posted on: Monday, 7 November 2005, 12:00 CST

By JACKIE JADRNAK Journal Staff Writer

At age 37, Donita Pea is happy to be alive. "I just want to keep getting stronger, stay healthy and watch my baby grow," said the mother of 7-year-old R.J.

Pea said she might not have been so lucky if it hadn't been for the state's Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. That program funds early screening tests -- mammograms and Pap smears -- for women without insurance or enough money to pay for the tests.

In the fiscal year that ended June 30, the program provided 5,074 mammograms and 5,717 Pap tests for New Mexico women, according to Marilynn Gould, program director with the state Department of Health.

Pea said her husband works as a flooring contractor and doesn't have health insurance. She was taking care of her son and not working outside the home about three years ago when a lump was diagnosed as breast cancer, she said.

She was on the early detection program because of a strong family history of breast cancer. "My greatgreat-grandmother died of it in her 20s. My greatgrandmother and grandmother died in their 30s," Pea said. "I just lost my mom two years ago to lung cancer, and she had breast cancer in her 40s."

Other family members have had breast and uterine cancers at young ages, she said. Pea added that gene-testing at the University of New Mexico showed her family didn't have either of the two known genes related to breast cancer. It's possible, though, they may have a cancer-related gene that hasn't been identified yet.

"Knowing my family history ... I was very scared," the Tom woman said. Health workers at a First Choice clinic got her signed up for the screening program so a mammogram was able to catch her first signs of breast cancer.

Her family history made her a special case. The program generally is designed to serve women 50 and older, Gould said. Cancer is more common in older women.

Deanna Callaway is one of those. Now 65, she had surgery to remove a cancerous lump in her breast three years ago. "Then I had radiation, and I'm cancer-free so far," the MacIntosh woman said. "And I do believe I'm going to be cancer-free. When I die, it's just going to be of old age."

She said she had been on the screening program for about eight years. Now retired, her husband worked as a truck driver while she stayed home in Nebraska raising five children. They never had any health insurance -- at least not until now, when she can get Medicare, she said.

Until she got on the screening program, Callaway said she can't remember the last time she had had either a Pap or a mammogram. "We're on a fixed income. We couldn't afford it," she said.

"By being able to have a mammogram every year -- as far as I'm concerned, that saved my life," she said. "Otherwise, it (the tumor) may have gotten larger, and by then, maybe it would be too late."

The couple moved to New Mexico in 1991. "I volunteer my time to my church and baby-sit now and then," Callaway said. They also are raising a granddaughter.

Callaway and Pea both were able to take advantage of a provision in Medicaid that covers treatment for lowincome women diagnosed under the screening program. Until that additional benefit took effect in New Mexico in 2002, some health-care providers did not want to take part in the screening program, Gould said. They didn't want to screen women for cancer, only to tell them there was no way to pay for their treatment.

Since it was implemented in 2002 through August of this year, the Medicaid benefit has paid for cancer treatment for 457 women taking advantage of the early screening program, Gould said.

The screening program gets funding from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; this year it's about $3.8 million, she said. That funding is designed to cover about 15 percent of the number of women who are eligible, she added.

Each year in New Mexico, 1,077 women are diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and 207 die from the disease. About 65 are diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer -- the cancer detected through Pap tests -- and 20 die from it, according to Department of Health statistics.

Women who have had their cancers caught through the screening program are active advocates in spreading the word.

Now working as a kindergarten classroom aide at Tom Elementary School, Pea said she tells others at work, as well as her family members, to get the tests and take advantage of the screening program if they don't have insurance.

"I tried to get my niece who is in her 20s to get on it, but she doesn't want to think about it," Pea said.

"Believe me, when somebody tells you, 'breast cancer,' immediately you think, 'death,' " Callaway said.

"It doesn't have to be that way. I all but got out on the corner and said to every women who passed by, 'Have you had your mammogram?' "

Source: Albuquerque Journal

More News in this Category