I know how it feels to have breast cancer. I do not know how it feels to live without a breast for almost two years. My friend Larissa, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in her early thirties, shared her journey with me and talked about what it was like not to have immediate reconstruction after her diagnoses and what led her to that decision.

Larissa started out thinking she had ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). A mastectomy was decided since the DCIS was widespread throughout the breast. She then met with a plastic surgeon and planned to have immediate reconstruction with an expander. At this point Larissa choose to get a second opinion. The second opinion didn't agree with the first one like she wished.

The appointment at the second opinion was very frightening to Larissa for a few reasons. First, the hospital had just purchased a new high-tech ultrasound machine. Larissa was the lucky one who got to try it out first! Second, what they discovered was that the cancer looked like it had become invasive, breaking out of the milk ducts and also spreading to the lymph nodes. Larissa said she "freaked out".

She knew this would mean chemotherapy and radiation and possibly a lot worse. So she made up her mind to delay reconstruction. Larissa didn't want anything else to go wrong. She said "I want to start fighting".

Just before my chemotherapy for breast cancer started -- when I was fantastically frightened by the toxic drugs that were about to drip into my veins -- I was told by doctors, nurses, survivors, friends that I would be just fine. I was young and strong and tough. I would easily tolerate the beating my body was about to take. This is what I was told and actually came to believe myself. I had no other choice really than to approach chemotherapy with a fighter mentality. And so I did. And I did pretty well for my first three doses of Adriamycin and Cytoxan -- given every two weeks instead of three in a dose-dense fashion -- followed by one injection of Neulasta 24 hours later to maintain normal blood counts. And then something happened. And I did not end up tolerating the chemotherapy my gut told me was a scary endeavor.

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.