Mother of 37 with stage 3 breast cancer finds lump while trying on swimsuit

As Julie Devaney Hogan When she wore a bikini for Labor Day weekend 2022, she felt a “barely there bump” under her nipples. Worried, she called her doctor.

“I was told not to worry,” Devaney Hogan, 38, of Boston, told TODAY.com. “They said ‘yes, nothing to worry about’. I will have a checkup at the end of October, so please come at that time.”

Still, she made an appointment with an OB-GYN and was examined, and found out what was causing the lump. It was stage 3 HER2-positive invasive ductal carcinoma breast cancer.

“My bikini saved my life,” she says.

The presence of a lump leads to the diagnosis

After finding Lump the size of a pea Devaney Hogan said her doctor’s office told her not to worry and she talked to friends about it. One person raised his voice.

“A really good nurse friend of mine said, ‘Absolutely not.’ Don’t settle for not being seen,” recalls Devaney Hogan. “She was like, ‘I don’t care what the doctors say.’ I don’t care if they’re worried. Check this out. You have babies. She’s got three.” It should be fine.”

She called the OB/GYN in hopes of getting tested soon.

“With a lot of hard work and persistence, I was able to book an appointment the following week,” she says. “Maybe I could have procrastinated because I was like, ‘I’m busy, I have something to do.’

The doctor referred her to a breast cancer facility and again reassured her that there was nothing to worry about. She was told she could have a mammogram and a biopsy, but she felt there was “no urgency” in her recommendation. Still, she scheduled a test.

“What was that shock? The bump was stage 3, HER2-positive, invasive breast cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes,” says Devaney Hogan. “I could have ignored it and waited, and was told that if I had waited, it would have been a completely different scenario.”

She underwent 12 chemotherapy treatments. double mastectomy, underwent lymphadenectomy and radiation therapy to treat her cancer. A recent test revealed that some cancer remained, so he started chemotherapy again, which will continue until next year, and he will undergo reconstructive surgery in November.

At age 35, Devaney Hogan actually had a mammogram because her mastitis had returned in one breast. That made her diagnosis all the more surprising.

“I had no other symptoms,” she said. “I had no symptoms, family history, or other symptoms that would put me on high alert.”

Being a mother, a career as a vice president at a tech company, and going through cancer have all felt daunting at times.

“Cancer is sometimes glorified and dramatized on TV. It becomes,” says Devaney Hogan. “The reality is you get your diagnosis and come home and your kids are still yelling at you for not opening the string cheese correctly.”

She took time off from work to focus on treatment and recovery.

“I’ve come to really consider this to be my new job in life,” she says. “I was… going to spend hours a week making sure I got through this.”

But while undergoing treatment, she pondered her diagnosis.

“You would never think it was you. It probably says terrible things,” she says. “I feel great, I exercise and eat well, but I am in shock.”

It also made her feel like she knew her body so well that she wondered why she had missed a lump.

“Why was I so blind to the fact that I could get this disease,” says Devaney Hogan. “So I started formulating the idea of ​​thinking and squeezing out how I could help other women not think of breast cancer awareness as just a theatrical act…in October.”

squeezing season

Before her diagnosis, Devaney Hogan raised awareness about breast cancer awareness in October, the need to find pink clothes for children to wear to school, and the disease that affects older women. I thought of it as an event meant to raise She wondered if something could be done to make breast cancer prevention more meaningful for women who were underage for mammography. Squeeze season‘ born.

“Unfortunately, more and more young women are affected by breast cancer. Why not meet with them in the summer and focus on what they can do specifically,” she says.

Devaney Hogan contacted swimwear manufacturers and asked them to include information about breast cancer detection and the ‘Season for Squeezin’ campaign on their tags.Heidi Fish — known for her bikini designs Worn by Padma Lakshmi in Sports Illustrated — agreed to include tags. Devaney Hogan recently learned that Imsy Swimwear and her Kortni Jeane Swimwear also use the tag.

Most medical groups do not recommend routine breast self-exam as a method of screening for breast cancer because studies have not shown that routine self-examination improves breast cancer detection or survival. . According to the Mayo Clinic. However, it is recommended that you get to know your breasts better and share this information with your healthcare provider as soon as possible so that you can recognize changes and what is normal and what is not.

“We were founded to pass on the message that you tighten yourself up every time you put on a bathing suit,” she says.

She plans to launch a campaign the week of June 18 that invites people to take a picture of her in a bathing suit holding fruit and tag five of her friends in the same way. I hope this reminds people to get close to their bosom.

Since receiving her diagnosis and starting Season for Squeezing, Devaney Hogan has learned a lot about herself. Throughout her career in the tech industry, others have kept telling her that she should “tone down” or “low-key” if she wanted to succeed. However, she realized that staying true to herself made a big difference.

“Being myself saved my life. says. “It’s scary when you need a diagnosis like breast cancer to accept and celebrate yourself for who you are.”