'Grey's Anatomy' saves woman's life
Sarit Fishbein of Kvutzat Yavne was told not to worry about lump in her breast, but an episode of medical drama fortunately led her to seek a second opinion.
Some two years ago, about 12 months after giving birth to a daughter, Fishbein discovered a suspicious lump in her breast. She promptly visited a surgeon for a check-up and was told there was no cause for concern. "I was in the final stages of breastfeeding at the time, and the doctor told me that everything was fine," Fishbein recounts. "Six months later I had already stopped breastfeeding, but I could still feel a significant lump in my left breast. I dismissed the matter nonchalantly, on the pretext that I had been told that everything was fine. I thought it must be something left over from the breastfeeding."
But things changed dramatically just a few days later. "I sat down one evening to watch 'Grey's Anatomy,' my favorite series," Fishbein recalls, "and the episode told the story of a patient who was admitted with Stage 3 breast cancer after being told for several months that the lump in her breast was due to the fact that she was nursing her infant child. Her symptoms were essentially identical to mine. I couldn't sleep that night."
Fishbein, the marketing director of the kibbutz's cannery, remembers every detail of the episode. She also remembers exactly what she did the morning after watching the show. "The day after watching the episode, I made an appointment with a different surgeon for a second opinion, and he immediately sent me for a mammogram and urgent biopsy," she says. "It didn't take long for the result to come back, and they showed conclusively that the lump was a very large malignant tumor that had already spread to the lymph glands in my armpit."
Today, after undergoing intense chemotherapy, radiation treatment and a full mastectomy, Fishbein is on the road to recovery, but she knows that things could have turned out very differently. "Had it not been for that episode, I wouldn't have discovered the disease," she stresses. "I am absolutely certain that it saved my life because they caught the cancer at the last minute, when the tumor was already at Stage 3, which is a very advanced stage. If I had waited and gone on living my life as normal, bone metastasis would have occurred within a few months."
After debating with herself for the past few months about going public, Fishbein decided over the weekend to post her story on Yahoo, where it was picked up by "Grey's Anatomy" creator Shonda Rimes, who chose to share with her 130,000 Facebook followers under the title: "Humbling."
"I was very surprised that she shared it," Fishbein says. "I was very torn about exposing the story, but now I feel great about it. If thanks to my message even just one woman goes to consult a breast surgeon and trusts in her intuition rather than in what the doctors say, then I have done my bit."
