15 months ago
WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) -- When it comes to the incidence of breast cancer in DC, the numbers are highest among white women in Ward 3. Both statistics and her own personal experience have stirred a local politician to do even more to raise awareness.
Ward 3 Council Member Mary Cheh has been a champion of various city health initiatives. But this time the fight is personal. In October 2008, while in a budget meeting, her cell phone rang with a message from her doctor.
"I thought she was going to say no problems, but she said it was breast cancer and that really rocked my world," Councilwomen Mary Cheh tells 9NEWS NOW.
Cheh's world actually started rocking much earlier in the spring of that same year during a random self check. She said she felt something but kept discounting it but it wouldn't go away.
Real or not, like so many women and men the busy councilwoman, law professor at George Washington University, wife and mother, didn't want to confront her fears.
Councilwomen Cheh tells us, "I don't see doctors, I don't have any other problems this must be some anomaly."
But the women, the buddies she confided in pushed her to act. She met breast surgeon Dr. Colette Magnant at Sibley Hospital who would perform a lumpectomy. A second procedure found no cancer in the lymp nodes, so Cheh chose weeks of radiation and & the drug Arimidex for the next 5-years to treat the disease.
"Given how I behaved and how others could behave that way after this occurred I committed myself to do something to help get the word out," said Councilmember Cheh.
One way she's chosen to get the word out and turn a negative into a positive is by signing up for the 2-day AVON Walk For The Cure in May.
She also said "There is no need to wait act now. Check yourself and act quickly. Take it to the next step satisfy yourself that you don't have breast cancer, because if you do you need to act right away."
Click here if you want to learn more about the Avon Walk or to join Team Cheh.
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