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Margie
Milne and her husband,
Jim, were enjoying a quiet retired
life in rural Montague, California,
when suddenly life threw them a
curve ball. One day, as Margie was
performing a breast self-exam,
she discovered a lump. From
previous mammograms, Margie
had been told that she had dense
breast tissue, so she wasn’t too
alarmed—although she recalls
now that the lump did feel a little
different.
At her yearly well-woman exam a
few weeks later, Margie’s OB-GYN
did a clinical breast exam and told
her—due to her dense breast
tissue—that she should have an
ultrasound. The ultrasound
revealed a suspicious mass, and
a physician performed a breast
biopsy. The results revealed that
she did indeed have breast cancer.
Margie’s husbandwas just as shocked
as Margie was at the diagnosis.
“He said, ‘It can’t be you—you lead
such a healthy lifestyle.’” Margie
had always tried to maintain her
health and had made it a point to
eat as many fruits and vegetables
as she could. With no family
history of breast cancer, the
diagnosis came out of left field.
Theway forward
After seeing a surgeon, she was
told that while the lump was small,
it was an aggressive formof cancer—
triple-negative breast cancer. She
had to make the decision to either
have a lumpectomy in the affected
breast or to have a complete
mastectomy in both breasts. She
decided on a lumpectomy, which
was then followed up with another
surgery to remove lymph nodes
under the arm. And as Margie
recalls, “Thank heavens, they
were clear.”
That was just the beginning of her
treatment. Margie needed chemo-
therapy and radiation following
surgery to make sure the tumor was
eradicated. She and her family
decided that the best place for
treatment was at Mercy Regional
Cancer Center in Redding, where
she worked with oncologist, Alireza
“Dr. Ali” Abdolmahammadi, MD.
Margie then underwent 16 rounds
of chemotherapy at the outpatient
chemotherapy department at
Mercy Medical Center Redding.
While she faced her share of hurdles,
Margie Milne is getting back to the things
she loves. This includes playing the piano,
which she has enjoyed since childhood.
HowMargieMilne weathered her “cancer storm” one treatment at a time
skies ahead
Margie also volunteers in her youngest
grandson’s kindergarten/first-grade
classroom each week. As a former
schoolteacher, she loves helping the
children with their reading and writing.