New 3D device could find breast cancer sooner

Paulla Miller is a breast cancer survivor, but the scariest part of her story has to do with the fact that she lived with her tumors for at least eight years while doctors passed it off as nothing.

“I was too young, and your grandmother just passed away, and don’t worry,” Miller said, mimicking what her doctors would tell her.

The misdiagnosis continued for Miller until her symptoms got worse.

“I said something has to be wrong,” she said. “I was having numbness in my fingers. I was exhausted.”

Even Miller’s OBGYN wouldn’t listen to her.

“In ’08 when I went in and had my yearly and I had a breast exam, I was told there was no lump,” she said.

Miller said it wasn’t until she pointed it out and her doctor finally agreed to give her a mammogram did they find the lump.

Three weeks later, she finally got the diagnosis she’d feared all those years.

“I was diagnosed with stage three,” she said. “I had three tumors in four lymph nodes.”

Miller then came to John C. Lincoln Hospital, where she underwent chemotherapy, then a double mastectomy, radiation and eventually reconstructive surgery.

Today she is now part of JCL’s Breast Health and Research Center.

“I’m here and I get to share with other women, to say, have a voice and if you don’t have one, find someone who has it for you,” she said.

She’s also telling every woman about a new piece of technology that can take a three-dimensional image of the breast and detect cancer that a normal mammogram will miss.

“It’s a 3D mammography,” Miller said. “And it’s stopping women from having to go through what I went through.”

Miller says the 3D diagnostic technology can see through layers of breast tissue and find the cancer long before it spreads.

“All those times we catch something sooner or I get a chance to meet somebody, that’s what makes it worth the journey,” said Miller.

To learn more, this Thursday is JCL’s “Breast Health and Wellness Expo” in Phoenix. It’s from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Four Points Sheraton near Interstate 17 and Peoria Avenue. You can RSVP by calling 602-712-1006.