Women credit mobile mammogram for catching cancer | The ...

Susan Gilroy, 69, is a sassy retired librarian who telecommutes part time from her home in rural Lowman.

Partly because it takes too long to drive into town and partly because she had no family history of cancer, Gilroy put off for decades important health screenings like mammograms.

"I'm a good avoider," Gilroy said.

A little over a year ago, Gilroy headed to Garden Valley for a blood test. Outside the clinic was the Saint Alphonsus Women's Mobile Wellness Clinic ? a mammography unit on wheels. It was so convenient, she decided to get screened.

Gilroy knew bad news was coming when they said she needed to go to Boise for further tests and, she said, because of the look on the technicians' faces.

Gilroy also had avoided having a colonoscopy. So she scheduled one. She waited a while before telling her sister and two grown children she'd been diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer and anal cancer. The two cancers were unrelated.

"You can pray and you can laugh, and if you can do that and keep your spirits up, you will make it through," Gilroy said. "I just turned it over to God and said, 'Hey, you take care of this.' When I started to panic, I would drag my mind in another direction."

A year after a double radical mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation, Gilroy is cancer-free. She credits the mobile mammography unit with saving her life.

"They caught the lump before it had a chance to spread through my body," she said.

That life-saving van is wearing out. The late-'90s van has more than 147,000 miles getting to rural Idaho, said Jackie Babb, director of the breast care center and systems integration for women's imaging with Saint Al's.

The van, along with drivers and techs, traverses Idaho from the Oregon border to as far east as Shoshone, and from the Duck Valley near Nevada north to Council.

The techs have screened about 3,000 women a year at rural clinics and senior living centers.

"That's more women than really are seen in some of our fixed-site locations," Babb said. "There are a lot of women who depend annually for the (van) to come to them."

At first, Saint Al's had to support the van and accounted for the expenses as community outreach. These days, the van pays for itself and its staff like any other medical service, with fees and insurance payments.

But the van's age and mileage have meant frequent breakdowns and fewer women in rural areas getting screened for cancer, Babb said.

So Saint Al's will use proceeds from the 2011 Festival of Trees to buy and outfit a new mobile mammography unit ? a $700,000 cost.

It's an important purchase because Idaho is last among states for the number of women 40 and older who have had a mammogram in the prior two years, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control.

"We are last, last, last, which is embarrassing, and it is terrible," said Jill Aldape, director of the Saint Alphonsus Foundation. "The point is that early detection can save lives."

Babb already has about half of the needed funding for the van.

Aldape said the festival is the foundation's biggest fundraiser of the year.

"We are looking to connect people with health care and inspire them to make a contribution to programs that benefit patients," Aldape said.

Last year, the festival raised $350,000 for mental health services. Aldape is hoping to at least match that figure in 2011.

Janice Canterbury, 55, of Council, made an appointment in 2007 to visit the van along with her sister-in-law and mother-in-law.

"If it had been just me, I would have blown it off," said Canterbury, who drives truck with her husband.

Within two weeks, her in-laws had letters saying their results were clear. Canterbury's came later ? with bad news.

She took the trip to Boise for a biopsy and a diagnosis of ductal carcinoma ? breast cancer. That was Memorial Day 2007, the same day her grandson Ian was born.

She had a lumpectomy and radiation treatment. Nearly 20 years before, she'd lost a friend in her mid-30s, who left behind two small children.

"It was scary for me," Canterbury said. "But I think it was more frightening for my kids because they watched my best friend die, and they saw how hard it was on me and how hard it still is on me."

The lesson, she said, is to never skip crucial health screenings and mammography.

"I started at age 40 and I think I missed one year. I will never miss a year again," Canterbury said. "I wouldn't have found it myself. They found it early. My feelings on the mobile unit (are) that it needs to go farther into Idaho, not just the towns it serves now. That van needs to work double time."

Idaho needs to move into the Top 10 for the number of women screened, Canterbury said.

Part of the problem is Idaho's geography.

"Idaho is so spread out, for a lot of women to make a normal provider's appointment would have to drive one or two hours," Babb said. "It's really just a matter of providing community access at those rural and frontier locations, which is huge. Women won't get it otherwise."

Once the new van is running, Saint Al's will take the older unit to Treasure Valley workplaces and community events to increase the number of Valley women screened, Babb said.

Gilroy has this advice for all women: Just do it.

"It doesn't hurt as bad, it only takes like 10 minutes and it's covered by your insurance," she said.

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Information from: Idaho Statesman, http://www.idahostatesman.com

Source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/news/health/2011/12/women-credit-mobile-mammogram-catching-cancer

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