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The Independent Student Voice of Mt. Hood Community College
October 25, 2013
Survivor beats odds after late diagnosis Richardson encourages people to stand up and fight for their health by Rebecca Gaulke The Advocate
Grace Richardson
Grace Richardson is now 11 years breast cancer free, and still going strong. Richardson, a full-time humanities faculty member who teaches several reading courses at MHCC, was diagnosed with early second-stage invasive lobular breast cancer at the age of 56. It took two years from the time the cancer started for her to be correctly diagnosed. “I had a lump in my breast and I
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went to the doctor and he thought it was a (harmless) cyst,” she said. She went to another physician who had been recommended to her, a young nurse practitioner. The nurse practitioner told Richardson she couldn’t even find the lump, and so she was sent home empty-handed. “What I should have done, is say, ‘Go find someone who can,’ ” Richardson said, in retrospect. She looks back now and realizes how important it is to stand up for your health. “I didn’t want to be sarcastic,
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and I thought, ‘How can I say this without sounding offensive?’ But, I should have been offensive – when it comes to your own health and something that serious,” she said. When she finally was properly diagnosed, Richardson was angry. “My emotional response was just fury. I was furious that I had this… and angry at people telling me to be upbeat and cheerful. “I was a single mother and teaching and it was, in my mind, nothing to be upbeat about,” she said.
Survivor
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