Model diagnosed with aggressive cancer after finding lump while shaving
Alison McCullough was in the best shape of her life and preparing for New York Fashion Week when she found a lump under her arm.
McCullough, then 39, wanted to get it checked out, but getting care was harder than she expected: A mobile mammogram provider turned her away because she wasn't 40, when the American Cancer Society recommends women start receiving regular mammograms. She had to get a referral from her primary care provider, but the wait for an appointment was long. In her home state of Alaska, there weren't a lot of other options.
"I had to jump through the hoops," McCullough said. "It's quite a long process when you feel like time is of the essence."
While she waited, McCullough tried to avoid looking up the worst-case scenarios. Her appearance at New York Fashion Week was a "great distraction." Finally, nearly two months after finding the lump, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer.
"I was shocked, and every time I got new information, it was worse information. I went from 'Yes, you have breast cancer' to 'It's an invasive cancer, and you have the BRCA-2 gene, and your cancer is triple negative, which means it's harder to treat,'" McCullough said. "In my mind, I thought ... they'd cut it out and I'd be on my way. But then I found out, no, you need chemotherapy, you're going to lose all your hair, and it just escalated. I felt like, 'Am I ever gonna get good news?'"
McCullough was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, which accounts for between 10% and 15% of all breast cancer cases, said Dr. Erica Mayer, director of breast cancer clinical research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Mayer was not involved in McCullough's care.