Contact: Sasha Steinberg
STARKVILLE, Miss.—A year ago this month, Starkville native Carley Millsaps Stein received the most devastating news of her life. Now, the 39-year-old breast cancer survivor can share just the opposite.
A lifelong Bulldog fan and mother of two, Stein was diagnosed last year with invasive ductal carcinoma. According to the American Cancer Society, more than 180,000 women in the U.S. find out they have invasive breast cancer each year. Most are diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma.
With no familial history of any kind of cancer, Stein said breast cancer never really had been “on my radar or even crossing my mind.” That was until last October’s Mississippi State-Auburn University “Think Pink” breast cancer awareness football game at Davis Wade Stadium.
“I was in the basement watching the game on television with our six-year-old daughter,” recalled Stein, whose family resides in Asheville, North Carolina. “My daughter noticed that Coach (Dan) Mullen was wearing a pink visor.”
After being asked why Mullen was wearing the visor, Stein took the time to explain to her daughter about breast cancer and the importance of doing breast self-exams.
“I had never had a mammogram and was not really great about doing these self-exams,” Stein admitted, “but I saw this as a teachable moment. I decided I would demonstrate to her how to do a breast exam, and that’s when I found the lump.”
The next day, Stein went to the doctor and experienced her first-ever mammogram.
“Everybody thought the lump was nothing at first, but they wanted to do a biopsy,” she said. “I got referred to The Hope Women’s Cancer Center here in Asheville. A week and a half later, I got the call that it was Stage 1 invasive ductal carcinoma.”
Now, after a challenging year of surgeries and chemotherapy, Stein is happy to report that her prognosis is “excellent,” and she is cancer-free.
“I’m still having to take medicine that they call a ‘targeted therapy,’ but all the treatment that we’re doing right now is just to be on the safe side,” she explained. “I just feel so unbelievably blessed that everything happened the way that it did that day and that we were able to detect this lump—just millimeters of tissue—so early.”
In addition to the knowledgeable and supportive staff at The Hope Women’s Cancer Center, Stein said she will be forever grateful for her friends, family and the leader of the Bulldogs football team.
“I don’t know if I can really ever thank Coach Mullen enough,” she emphasized. “His decision to wear that pink visor that day—as well as my sweet daughter’s question about why he was wearing it—saved my life.
“I’m so grateful for what he did, and I will never forget it.”
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.