San Diego

Young San Diego Breast Cancer Survivor Stresses the Importance of Self-Exams

A breast cancer diagnosis doesn't have to be a death sentence, Dr. Lin says.

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At 31, Sarah Cocker Scott felt like her life was just getting started.

“I had worked my entire life to become a veterinary internist,” said Scott. “I had spent my whole life studying and working and I was finally done with my residency.”

Then she discovered a frightening change in her body.

“I was at my sister's bachelorette party and we were all tubing behind a boat on a lake,” said Scott. “Then I came home and I had sore pectoral muscles from like holding on to the rope. I was just massaging my sore pectoral muscles when I found a mass.”

She immediately called her OB-GYN, who soon after confirmed her worst fear.

“I had cancer,” said Scott.

Scott was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, a rare, aggressive, and hard to treat subtype.

“[After] a lot of pocking and probing, a lot of biopsies, CT scans, PET scans, MRIs, mammograms, all of those things, we were able to finally start chemotherapy,” said Scott.

She spent two years in remission. Then cancer came back, this time during a critical time in her life.

“I was about eight months pregnant and I just went in for my routine ultrasound and screening and they found two new masses on the side that it was previously,” said Scott. "So we had to start all over again.”

Scott underwent a mastectomy just weeks before giving birth to her baby girl Taisley and began chemotherapy one week after her baby was born.

Today, she is once again cancer free.

Her doctor, Ray Lin, a radiation oncologist with Scripps MD Anderson Cancer Center and Scripps Clinic, credits her successful recovery to early detection.

“That's the key point,” said Lin. “She was diagnosed very early, she came in very positive, and she underwent a very successful treatment.”

Each year in the U.S., the CDC reports about 264,000 cases of breast cancer diagnosed in women.

“Breast cancer is becoming more and more common in all women,” said Lin. “But in younger women, it's proportionately higher than it used to be.”

But Lin said a breast cancer diagnosis doesn’t have to be a death sentence. 

“If you're diagnosed with breast cancer, there's more than a 90% chance that you will be alive in five years,” said Lin.

The key is finding it early.

“Get screened for breast cancer,” said Lin. "Whether it's diagnostic screening, or by physical exam, get screened somehow for breast cancer. Be attentive to your body, be aware of any changes, whether it's a dimpling of the breast skin, changes or lump, be attentive and be aware of what's going on in your body and get help.”

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