Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Early Detection is Critical

By Ashley Puderbaugh

Oct. 30 will be three years exactly. Three years since Brandi Palmer was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer. The diagnoses came has a blessing, she says. Her breast cancer was caught on her very first mammogram—one that wasn’t supposed to take place until after she turned 40. But her sister-in-law scheduled back-to-back mammogram appointments as a girls’ day out for the two of them seven months earlier than scheduled. And really, that’s what saved her life.

“If I had waited until after I turned 40, this would have been a whole different situation, because the cancer was very aggressive,” Brandi shares. “Knowing where I could have been, I couldn’t help but look at this as a complete blessing for me.”

Today, Brandi is full of energy and life. She’s thankful that she has a long life ahead of her with her husband Brad, with whom she’s been married since 1994, and her two daughters. She’s also passionate about her causes—spreading her awareness of breast cancer, encouraging others to get mammograms, and helping other women who are going through the same issues.

Spreading Her Message

After she recovered from her double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery, Brandi decided she needed to tell her story and explain why early detection is so critical. “That was my first goal. I needed to let people know that they shouldn’t wait for that lump to appear,” she explains. “Self-breast exams are extraordinarily important—I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do them. But just because you don’t feel something, doesn’t mean you should put off getting a mammogram.

So with a couple of dollars and a bunch of pictures, she made the video, “Don’t Wait for the Lump,” which you can view at www.smilebox.com/smileboxblog/2010/10/15/october-is-breast-cancer-awareness-month.

“The video holds an image of what breast cancer really is. It was terrifying to me to put that in there,” Brandi shares. “Knowing that I could be ridiculed and subjected to a lot of criticism, I had to decide the message is more important than how people might perceive it.”

Brandi emailed the link to her Smilebox video to 50 people, who in turn shared with other friends who needed to hear the message of early detection. The video garnered so much traffic that Smilebox contacted Brandi to ask if they could share the important message with its more than 2 million subscribers through eNewsletters.

“It reached people from all walks of life, from India to New Zealand to Australia to Great Britain,” she says. “People were sharing their stories with me, and some women told me that my message saved their lives. That made it all worth it.”

In addition to her Smilebox video, Brandi spreads her message of early detection by speaking in the community as an ambassador for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Her speaking engagements include sororities throughout the state and nursing students at community colleges and universities.

“Susan G. Komen to me was instrumental in equipping me with the necessary tools to find services out there to help me, support groups, etc.,” Brandi explains. “Because I felt so fortunate that my cancer was caught early, wanting to be involved with the Foundation was very natural for me.”

That video, combined with her volunteer service with the Susan G. Komen Foundation, led to many more opportunities. The Foundation nominated Brandi for the Buck O’Neil Legacy Seat Award, which she won for her work in promoting education. That award led to a nomination and subsequent win as Mrs. Kansas U.S. 2011. She also serves as a contact for St. Luke’s patients who have been recently diagnosed.

Brandi’s most recent project, however, is “Don’t Wait for the Lump 2.0,” a sequel to her first video that will be released the first of this month. While the first video told Brandi’s own story, the sequel features stories from survivors young and old, from the recently diagnosed to those who have lived with the disease for more than 30 years.

“It’s a video to show people that cancer does not discriminate against age, race, gender, socioeconomic status. It is an equal-opportunistic disease,” Brandi says.

If you would like to book Brandi for a speaking engagement, you can contact her at mrskansasus2011@gmail.com. You also can find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mrskansasus2011. For more information about breast cancer early detection, visit ww5.komen.org/breastcancer/earlydetectionampscreening.html.