When Erin Rucker felt a sharp pain near her armpit while stretching at her desk, she brushed it off. Even after feeling a sizable lump, she still delayed making an appointment with her doctor. Donor gifts to support mobile mammography in Cincinnati is the reason Erin’s breast cancer was finally diagnosed and treated.

“I was just too busy,” Erin says. “And I didn’t think it could be anything serious. I have no family history of breast cancer.”

But Erin’s daughter, Hannah, was concerned. She sent Erin a flyer for the Mercy Health mobile mammography van and even made her mother an appointment. Call it “daughter’s intuition,” but that simple step saved her mother’s life.

At the mobile mammography van, Erin met Erin Spangler, a compassionate staff member and breast cancer survivor. Spangler immediately knew something was terribly wrong.

The presence of Erin’s lump meant she couldn’t be screened on the mobile unit — she would need additional care. But that didn’t stop Spangler from helping.

“She refused to let me leave without an appointment,” Erin recalls. “She called every imaging center in the city until she found someone who could see me quickly.”

Erin was diagnosed with stage-3 breast cancer. She underwent a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation. Three years later, she is cancer-free, a little wiser and deeply grateful. She even volunteers at community events to help raise breast cancer awareness.

“Thank you all so much. It just makes me want to cry to think about how I would have ended up if mobile mammography had not been there in that parking lot.”