In June 2022, Dr. Tom and Ann Glasgow were downsizing to a smaller home in Oxford. While moving a load, Ann fell forward and hit the concrete hard.

“I noticed a lump in my breast where I fell, and it was quite sore,” Ann says. Assuming it was from the fall, she didn’t think much of it until much later when she was playing with her young grandson in Texas. He accidentally kicked her chest, and she realized the spot was still tender.

“Then I thought, ‘there’s something wrong,’” she says. “I had missed my annual mammogram because both of my parents had recently died. There was so much going on that year, so I was about six months behind in getting my mammogram done.”

Until 2021, Ann had always been vigilant when it comes to mammograms. Like many women, she is prone to have breast calcifications, calcium deposits within breast tissue that appear as white spots or flecks on a mammogram. She had a real scare 30 years ago; fortunately, the suspected mass that was removed turned out to be negative for cancer.

When she returned home from Texas, Ann scheduled her mammogram at North Mississippi Medical Center’s Breast Care Center in Tupelo. They did a breast ultrasound that same day and when the radiologist discovered a suspicious spot, she was called back a few days later for a biopsy.

While Dr. Mona Castle of Oxford Medical Clinic is her primary doctor, it was Ann’s husband who delivered the bad news. “He came home at lunch and said, ‘The report is back and the report’s not good,’” Ann says. “I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. Then everything set in.”

At the time, Ann was planning the annual meeting for the Mississippi Association of Nurse Practitioners, which she served as president, as well as trying to clean out her parents’ home and get settled in her own new place. To say life was already chaotic would be an understatement, but Ann knew the breast cancer must be dealt with.

Ann was referred to Dr. Danny Sanders with the NMMC Breast and General Surgery Clinic in Tupelo, who explained her treatment options. “When I met with Dr. Sanders, I was really at peace because of his plan, his love, his expertise and his compassion,” she says. “I knew I was where I belonged.”

While Ann was still reeling from her own diagnosis, their 45-year-old daughter’s mammogram also revealed a suspicious lesion. Fortunately, hers was determined to be benign.

After six months of chemotherapy, Ann was scheduled for a mastectomy. “The day of my appointment with Dr. Sanders, I met a lady in his waiting room who prayed for me,” Ann says. “As medical professionals, we follow protocol—but you learn that medicine can only go so far.” That day, Dr. Sanders shared the good news: her MRI showed no cancer. Ann would need only a lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy rather than having her entire breast removed. Her pathology reports after surgery were also negative for cancer.

Now Ann urges other women to get their mammogram and if diagnosed with breast cancer: “Find the right medical team—an expert you trust who also has compassion.”

Ultimately, her trust rests with an even higher authority. “That fall was not an accident. Things happen to us in life that we can’t explain,” Ann says. “I think God allowed that fall to happen so I would find this—and now I have a new lease on life.”