Video: Breast Cancer Series Part 1 – Fighting Breast Cancer

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COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – According to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, an estimated 230,000 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 2013. Nearly 40,000 of those women will die from the disease. Columbus native, Keneisha Petty was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year.

“I had a really close friend that found a knot in her breast. After that, I started doing my self exams. I think I probably found it around February, late February, early March, just taking a shower,” says Petty.

Petty says nothing can prepare you for that moment.

“Initially it was a shock. I found the knot and I was thinking it was a cist or maybe an aspiration but it was a shock,” says Petty.

Thirty five year old, Keneisha Petty is married and has two children. Her oldest child is 14 year old Mariel Tellis, who couldn’t believe what was happening to her mom.

“I didn’t know what to think. I was just shocked. I think that God will make a way for everything to happen. He’ll bring you through your struggles,” says Tellis.

Petty receives chemo-therapy treatment at Baptist Memorial Hospital Golden Triangle. She says one of the most devastating aspects of having breast cancer is losing her hair.

“One of the first things I guess popped in my head after hearing “you have breast cancer” I thought well, I’m going to lose all my hair. Some people with these treatments you take, you’re supposed to lose all of it. I was not supposed to have any hair, but thank God I have a little. When it started to shed and come out, I just decided to cut it low,” says Petty.

Performing her own breast exam and catching the disease early gave Petty a fighting chance. She says women of all ages need to perform self breast exams monthly. It’s a matter of life and death.

If you’d like more information on how to perform a breast self-exam, just go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation at http://ww5.komen.org.