This Image Helped One Woman Detect Her Own Breast Cancer

Chieze says she was diagnosed with breast cancer five days later and learned she had stage four cancer the following month. “A heart did nothing for awareness,” she writes. “I knew what breast cancer was. I knew all about self-exams, but a picture of what to look for keyed me into knowing I had a terminal disease.”

Brush up on how to do a breast self-exam: 

Chieze stresses that people need to give real information on breast cancer, not “cute hearts.” “Without having seen a picture randomly with real information, I wouldn’t have known what to look for,” she says. “Do us a favor, stop playing games with my life and start truly helping people.”

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Chieze also posted a photo that was similar to the one she saw, and encouraged people to pass it on. (For more information about the war on cancer, pick up Rodale’s A World Without Cancer.)

“If you truly want to help people WITH cancer, or those who will GET cancer, share photos like this one,” she says. “I wish I remembered who posted the original picture I saw, it truly did make a difference for me.”