Dawn Lovelace had none of the risk factors for breast cancer. She got it anyway.

“I’m a woman … that’s my risk factor,” she said in a recent interview.

The nurse and midwife, who basically founded the obstetrics program at Coulee Medical Center 23 years ago, took her own medical advice and went in to CMC for a screening mammogram in January of 2017.

“Unreality,” she said of the news. “The sinking...