Cancer survivors encourage regular mammograms

Waseca area breast cancer survivors Delphine Farley, 81, and Angie Bohannon, a 1996 Waseca High School graduate, have two very different stories, but at least one very emphatic shared take-away:

 

Women should not skip their annual mammogram.

 

“They’re uncomfortable, and nobody likes them,” concedes Angie. But she goes on to say they can save a woman’s life, and can allow cancer to be found quickly, reducing the level of treatment women will need.

 

It was a lesson she learned the hard way. 

 

When she went in for a routine mammogram in 2024, it had been about six years since her most recent previous one, in 2018; she says she wishes she had not waited so long, given the difference it might have made in her treatment.

 

“Now I encourage all the women in my life to go for their annual tests,” she comments.

 

She also says that, after cancer interfered with her life for just over a year, she has seldom gotten sweeter news than the “no evidence of disease” test result she received in August of 2024. She says her whole outlook on life has changed.

 

“I don’t sweat the small stuff,” she says cheerfully. “There’s no reason to get tense and upset, because things can be handled.”

 

She would know.

 

After her routine mammogram in 2024, she was informed there was something “suspicious” in the images, and asked to report for a biopsy.

 

“I was nervous, but I told myself it was just a routine test.”

 

When it turned out the lump was cancerous, she remembers feeling “devastated. Hearing

the C-word changes your whole world.”

 

From the moment of her diagnosis, she recalls, “things moved pretty quickly.”

 

Plans for a prompt lumpectomy had to be changed when an MRI revealed the lump was so close to the chest wall that there was a danger the muscle would be penetrated during surgery. Instead Angie was scheduled for six rounds of chemotherapy to be administered across 18 weeks. The objective was to shrink the tumor so that the surgery, when it occurred, would be safer.

 

“It was very scary,” she says of the news the tumor’s location made it more dangerous. She describes chemotherapy as being “awful.”  Her hair fell out, so she chose to wear wigs or hats. She would arrive on the appointed days around 7 a.m., and not be finished until about 2 p.m. The treatments left her feeling light-headed and physically “heavy” for the next few days.  Despite that, she says, she continued to go to work as much as possible. “It was easier for me if I stuck with my routine,” she describes. “It helped me feel normal.”

 

As she considered the approaching surgery, she reached the conclusion she would have a double mastectomy. “It was a difficult choice,” she says. “But I didn’t want there to be any chance I would have to go through this again.”

 

After the surgery in August of 2024, she received infusions through March of 2025. Thankfully, she say, those did not make her feel ill, even though the procedures and the setting were the same as for chemo.

 

With those done, and the “no evidence of disease” test result, she says she is filled with gratitude for her everyday routine and for the people who supported and strengthened her during those difficult times. “My biggest supporter was my mom [Nelda Metz], who had had lung cancer,” Angie remembers. Nelda died in March of 2025.

 

Other supporters are still all around her, including her husband Jason, her two children, her father John, and her co-workers at Deml Ford, and her friends. Her recollection of their support and help is part of the reason, she believes, she can be so positive. Another source of pleasure is her hair, now a few inches long.

 

When new pleasures come her way, she says she enjoys them in a way she hadn’t before. “I see life differently,” she reflects. “It’s good to appreciate what we have, and not fret over details.

 

“Life goes on, and that’s what matters.”

 

Delphine Farley is a 16-year survivor of her cancer diagnosis. She says she was always consistent about a yearly mammogram, and had no idea anything was wrong when she scheduled her annual appointment.

 

When she received the news there was a suspicious lump in her breasts, and when further tests revealed it was cancerous, she was offered an array of options. The lump could be removed, followed by both chemotherapy and radiation. Or she could choose more aggressive surgery; each level would entail progressively less intense followup.

 

As she made her decision, Delphine explains the experiences of her sister-in-law, Renae Farley, were in her mind. Renae had previously been diagnosed with cancer, and had undergone both chemotherapy and radiation. She had described the discomforts of both, and even after receiving them, her health had continued to decline, eventually leading to her death.

 

“I didn’t want any chance it would come back,” says Delphine of her cancer, describing her feelings at the time. “So I had both breasts removed. I was 64 years old; I didn’t need them for anything any more.”

 

With that level of surgery, doctors said only one form of follow-up treatment would be needed, a medication which she took for five years.

 

She says she has never regretted her choice. 

 

Being cancer free allowed her to enjoy 10 more years of her 55-year marriage to James, with whom she had operated the multi-generational Farley family farm near Janesville beginning in 1974. It allows her to continue to enjoy time with the four children they raised, Lisa, Brian, Amy and Dean, born between 1968 and 1979. It means she is still here to share the company of her 12 grandchildren, and to appreciate the births of her 8 great-grandchildren so far–one of them just this month.

 

At least in part, she credits her survival to that regular annual mammogram in 2010. “I just always knew I should schedule an appointment every year,” she says. “I’m glad I did, and I suggest that every woman do the same.”