I was 41 when I found out I had breast cancer. 

One day, I was carting around two teenagers and a preschooler, running our small business, and doing my daily chores — just living a normal, busy life. Then, I noticed a heaviness in my left breast, a kind of fullness I’d always associated with nursing. A few weeks passed, but the sensation didn’t go away. I scheduled a mammogram — my first and only.

At the end of that...