Hamatie Sahadeo is now a breast cancer survivor. She was diagnosed in June and finished her radiation treatment last week.
"I pushed my mammogram away, oh, this is not for me," Hamatie said.
She skipped her mammogram for two years, until last June when she was feeling extra tired and a biopsy showed breast cancer.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month so Broward Health in Fort Lauderdale set up an interactive display and view inside a woman's body.
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"Doing smaller surgeries, doing smaller radiation therapy, and even not giving chemotherapy unless it's absolutely needed," said breast cancer surgeon Dr. Alia Abdulla.
And that was the case with Hamatie, a lumpectomy followed by five weeks of almost daily radiation treatments. With the help of her husband of 27 years, her two grown children, friends and other family members, Hamatie is looking into the future with a positive attitude and a message.
"Encourage women to have their yearly checkups for mammograms and follow up with your doctor. Now I see how it's important because I never thought I would have been diagnosed with breast cancer," she said.
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Hamatie is now in remission and back at work as a program director at an assisted living facility.