Page 90 2025 PAINT THE PAPER PINK Lincoln Daily News Oct/Nov 2025 Tami Purcell Yearly mammograms are important Tami Purcell’s breast cancer diagnosis provides a perfect example of why it is important to get yearly mammograms. Tami said, “I hadn’t had a mammogram for 3 years when I found a large lump in my armpit.” After a diagnostic mammogram and biopsy, Tami said, “I found out the week before Thanksgiving in 2023 that I had Triple Negative Breast Cancer. I didn’t have a family history of breast cancer and honestly never thought it would happen to me. Triple Negative Breast Cancer spreads quickly and has a very high risk of recurrence. Mine was in my breast and lymph nodes. Annual mammograms would have caught it before it spread to my lymph nodes.” Three days before Christmas of 2023, Tami started chemotherapy and immunotherapy. She said, “I went through 6 months of chemo before having surgery in June of 2024. I was very blessed during chemo, other than hair loss and fatigue, my side effects were minimal compared to others.” After Tami healed from surgery, which was a lumpectomy with lymph node removal, she did 30 rounds of radiation. Tami said, “radiation was the toughest part of treatment for me. The burns from radiation vary from patient to patient and mine were severe, they looked similar to second degree burns and very painful. I finished radiation in October and had my last immunotherapy in November.” To communicate what was going on with her cancer treatments, Tami used CaringBridge. In a December 7, 2024, CaringBridge post, Tami described how she felt when her immunotherapy ended. Tami said, “As I was leaving at the end of my treatment, all of the staff lined up to stand with me as I rang the bell on my final treatment. I hadn’t anticipated that, or the mixture of smiles and tears they each had. If anyone in the treatment room was napping, they got a somewhat rude awakening when I held that bell over my head and rang it good. That was followed by tears, hugs, and laughs.”
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