It’s one month to the day since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I have two surgeries behind me and treatments ahead of me. The shock and trauma to the body and psyche remain fresh.

Details from Friday, October ninth stand out in sharp relief. I was sitting in the chair I’m in now, typing on the same computer, waiting for the results of my biopsy. I remember looking at the clock at 9:50 a.m. “Please let them call me in the afternoon,” I thought. “If they call then, it’s benign. The morning calls will be to people needing appointments for surgery.”

At 10:05 the hospital was on the telephone. “We have your results. The slide came back from pathology marked ‘IDC.’ You have invasive ductal carcinoma.” I wrote down the details of my appointment with the surgeon. I hung up the telephone and let out what would be the first of several primal screams.

The irony of being diagnosed during “Breast Cancer Awareness Month" was not lost on me. There were many coincidences that day. My husband happened to be working from home (a rarity) before keeping an appointment with his own physician. I called him with my news just as he was walking into his doctor’s office. I learned later that my husband’s blood pressure shot so high that his physician did not proceed with a scheduled physical. “This might not be the best day to do this,” said his doctor. “Let’s talk about what’s going on at home.”

There was another irony. I’d skipped my mammogram screening the previous year and thought I might wait until the spring of 2010. I felt fine. Life was good. Why put my upper body through torture? My husband and my primary care physician both harped on me to get a checkup. I went to please them.

When the radiologist called after my initial screening, she had to browbeat me to come back. (I thought she was seeing a benign area on the x-ray that had been discovered years before.) I could almost feel her hopping up and down on the other end of the phone. This did not bode well. So, I went back for another mammogram, an ultrasound, and a biopsy.

The people who browbeat me into getting a mammogram saved my life. Maybe there’s a woman you care about who is tempted to skip her yearly screening. Please don’t let her do it.