Sheryl Crow, breast cancer survivor and active advocate for breast cancer issues, is advising women to demand immediate additional testing when breast calcifications are discovered -- rather than accepting the wait-and-see approach with instructions to come back in six months for another mammogram.

Crow is quoted as saying, "If, after a routine mammogram, the person who is examining you says, 'There's some calcification in your breasts, we'll keep our eye on it; come back in six months' -- don't. Schedule a needle biopsy now. If I had waited six months to do the biopsy, who knows where I'd be today."

Good advice for women who suspect anything is wrong. As our dear friend Kristina Collins, who blogs with us, recently shared in her personal experience of delayed breast cancer diagnosis, when she first discovered a lump in her breast and sought medical attention, she was told not to worry -- she was too young to have breast cancer. No tests were done and Kristina was sent home. She initially trusted her doctor's opinion. Nearly a year later, she demanded tests be done and was subsequently diagnosed with breast cancer.

Unfortunately Kristina lost almost a year when her breast cancer could have been treated at an earlier stage. Unlike Crow, who wonders where she might be now had she waited another six months before breast cancer diagnosis, Kristina wonders the opposite -- what it might have been like if she had been diagnosed and treated sooner. We must be our own best advocate when it comes to our health and insist on cancer screening at the first sign of trouble.