Jen Parish often wonders what got her in the car that November night in 2013. The busy mother of four had just returned home from a business trip and was caring for a sick daughter. Prepped in yoga pants for a quiet evening in, she was ready to blow off that night’s pre-scheduled gathering with friends at a mammogram party.
But something kept tugging at her to get in her car and go.
“I wasn’t sure what a mammogram party was, but I just felt like I should go…maybe it was my sweet tooth? The invite had promised cupcakes and massages,” joked the Colbert resident. “I arrived very late,” she continued. “Everything was closing up … the equipment had been wiped down and the technicians were ready to leave. But they nicely opened everything back up so I could get the screening.”
Jen, 41 at the time, had received a baseline mammogram a few years prior. She planned to get another screening the following August. But as it turned out, that would have been too late. The mammogram detected something.
“They asked me to come in so they could get a better look,” she said. “I still didn’t think anything of it.”
After more imaging and a biopsy, Jen got a call. Her doctor told her she had aggressive stage Ill breast cancer: invasive ductal carcinoma.
“They were words I had never heard before,” she said. “It was an out-of-body experience.”
Two days before Christmas, Jen began 16 weeks of chemotherapy, followed by a bilateral mastectomy and breast reconstruction in April. She commends the staff at Inland Imaging for the exceptional care she received along the way.
“Inland Imaging was my first point of contact during a very worrisome experience,” she said. “They handled everything with such grace … they were so calm and reassuring and put me at ease during a very scary time. They are so good at what they do.”
Jen is now cancer-free and growing stronger in her recovery. She sometimes thinks about that November night and what might have been.
“Had I waited until August to get a mammogram, the cancer would have spread,” she said. “I’m so grateful that the ladies with Inland Imaging screened me that night at the mammogram party, even though I was late. They did it without hesitation. I owe so much to them.”
She hopes her story inspires other young women to put their health first.
“I’m the first of my group of friends to go through something like this,” she said. “I hound everyone I know to get screened, and I’m very outspoken about it on social media. I didn’t take mammograms as seriously as I should have. It’s such a simple thing that can have such a huge impact on your overall health.”