WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar revealed Thursday that she was diagnosed with Stage 1A breast cancer earlier this year and she has since undergone treatment that went well.
In a Medium blog post, the senator from Minnesota says doctors at the Mayo Clinic found small white spots called calcifications during a routine mammogram in February.
After that, Klobuchar says she had a biopsy at Piper Breast Center in Minneapolis, where she learned she learned her breast cancer diagnosis.
Klobuchar says she returned to the Mayo Clinic and had a lumpectomy on the right breast which involved the removal of the cancer.
In May, the former presidential candidate says she completed a course of radiation treatment, and after additional follow-up visits, it was determined in August that the treatment went well.
“Of course this has been scary at times, since cancer is the word all of us fear, but at this point my doctors believe that my chances of developing cancer again are no greater than the average person,” she wrote.
In her post, Klobuchar took the opportunity to call attention to the fact that many people have been delaying physicals and routine exams because of the pandemic.
“I know that because I delayed mine. In fact, more than one in three adults reported delaying or forgoing health care because of coronavirus-related concerns. Studies have found that thousands of people who missed their mammogram due to the pandemic may be living with undetected breast cancer. Over and over, doctors are seeing patients who are being treated for more serious conditions that could have been caught earlier,” she wrote.
She ended her post by saying the experience with cancer has given her time to reflect and she has a renewed purpose to her work.
