Heather Wright/The Independent

Phyllis Sutherland says sometimes you need people to wake you up. So the Petrolia woman who is living with Stage 4 Breast Cancer is writing to as many women as she can to urge them to get a mammogram, whatever their age.

The active 86-year-old was in Arizona with her husband, Norm, when she noticed a big crease in her breast. They headed home and doctors at Bluewater Health began testing. It was breast cancer and it was very advanced.

Sutherland admits it was a bit surprising even though two of her daughters had breast cancer over the years. In her 70s, Sutherland had a mammogram just to be sure she was okay, since breast cancer runs in families. And she was fine.

“I’d figured I’d escaped it, because of my age,” she says. “And I was perfectly healthy.”

Several years after that mammogram, she received a letter from the Ministry of Health saying she’d “aged out” and no longer needed mammograms.

But then, she found the hard ridge and was diagnosed with breast cancer at 86.

Sutherland recently finished chemotherapy and says she tolerated it fairly well, although she feels weak. 

Her experience has prompted her to warn as many women as possible to be on their guard. She’s sent letters to women in every group she is part of and a few friends who have passed on the word to continue getting checked.

“I really do think it’s important for women to at least be aware,” Sutherland said. “If they don’t want to do it, that’s up to them. But I wish I had known – I wish I had.  I just didn’t think. You need somebody to wake you up.”