He’s fulfilling a promise: Breast cancer misdiagnosis

Bill realized on their first date that he was looking at his future wife. After their second date he and Maureen moved in together and never parted. Eventually they had two sons, Erik and Ryan. Happily living together, active in their church and well-loved in their community, they were your average working-class American couple, Bill says.

In late 1994, Maureen found a small lump in her left breast while performing self-examination. Over the next two and a half years, three different doctors told Maureen she had absolutely nothing to worry about, that the lumps in her breast were harmless fibroid cysts. Once her cancer was finally diagnosed, she lived only one year, undergoing radical mastectomies, multiple surgeries, chemotherapies and stem-cell replacement therapy.

Maureen Thiel passed away at 43 due to a delayed diagnosis of breast cancer. She left behind a husband and two young sons. Maureen's story is a tragically shocking case of a deadly misdiagnosis that clearly demonstrates the need for a Universal Standard of Care for the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of breast lumps.

According to he Universal Standard, a biopsy would have been performed on Maureen within a month after she first found a lump. If she had received an earlier biopsy, there is a good chance she would still be alive today, a good chance her devoted husband, Bill, would still have a wife, a good chance their two sons, Erik and Ryan, would still have a mom.

Maureen's Mission is the fulfillment of a promise a husband made to his dying wife.

Advice: Become an advocate, as Bill Thiel has.

Read another of our breast cancer stories, or the source and web site of the nonprofit organization, Maureen’s Mission.