There can be life after breast cancer. The prerequisite is early detection.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004.

The rate of early cancer detection was better than what we see in the general community. But it remains to be seen if that translates into a mortality benefit. It is too early to make any recommendations regarding chest X-rays as a lung cancer screening tool in the general population.

For example, breast cancer will strike one in eight American women in their lifetime. Early detection using mammography reduces mortality rates by approximately 20 percent. But use of vitamin D might prevent this cancer in the first place.

With breast cancer, it's all about detection. You have to educate young women and encourage them to do everything they have to do.

Once I overcame breast cancer, I wasn't afraid of anything anymore.