Lillian Helwick, a nurse practitioner, has worked in healthcare for most of her adult life. She takes care of herself and gets her annual exam and mammogram. In 2001, her annual mammogram showed an anomaly, and she went in for a biopsy. It was cancer.

She wasn’t entirely surprised. “My twin sister had been diagnosed with breast cancer two years before me,” she recalls. “Things always happen to both of us, and I am always second, even though I am the oldest.” It was stage one. She had caught it early.

“That early diagnosis meant a good prognosis for me,” explains Lillian. “I went to Billings Clinic and saw both the surgeon and the plastic surgeon to discuss all the options.” She opted for a bilateral mastectomy. In 2004, her 25-year old daughter was also diagnosed with breast cancer. The three women underwent testing for the “breast cancer gene”. “The tests for the genes they know about were all negative,” she says. “But I felt good about my decision to get the double mastectomy. Every woman is different and that was the right choice for me.”

There was a lot of support for Lillian when she went through her experience with breast cancer, and it helped. But she won’t pretend it wasn’t hard or that she wouldn’t rather have avoided this life challenge. “When you get a diagnosis like breast cancer you feel like this isn’t happening to you, it is happening to someone else,” says Lillian. “Then you have to get all the information you can, and deal with it. There a lot of options and a lot of information. You have to inform yourself and begin making the best decisions you can for yourself.”

“Some people say it’s the best thing that ever happened to them, that it is life changing,” she adds. “It certainly changes things, but not necessarily the way you would want them changed. I wouldn’t have chosen to go through this, but its always better to be informed and proactive about your haelth.”

Lillian’s experience in healthcare also helped her get through breast cancer. “As a healthcare worker, I know how to maneuver through the system,” she says. “I was my own advocate. All women need to do this for themselves.”

“No matter what your age, all women need to be diligent about their health,” advises Lillian. “We are seeing more and more women who are younger being diagnosed with breast cancer. Know your body, do your self exams, and talk to your doctor. If you think something is wrong, be assertive because early detection is the key to survival.”