New Hispanic Breast Cancer Clinic aims to make care more accessible for Spanish speakers
Erika Aleman of Cicero took up running a few years ago to have time to herself. Then she started challenging herself by running marathons. Her goal: to qualify for the Boston Marathon.
As her training progressed, she lost weight — 20 lbs. to be exact, some in her breast area.
“Thanks to that, I was able to find my lump,” said the mother of two. “I started running to take care of myself and to make my daughters proud and then I found a lump in my right breast.”
That was in November 2021. Her physician thought it was a cyst. Aleman insisted it was cancer. But she held out hope. Because she had to pay out of pocket for her mammogram during the height of the pandemic, she got the mammogram in January 2022, and was officially diagnosed with triple-negative cancer in March 2022 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
“It’s so funny because when they say triple-negative, I’m like, ‘It’s negative, negative, negative,
