BOISE, Idaho — Four years ago, getting a mammogram was not high on Emily Richards' priority list.
Then 42, the Kuna resident was caring for her five children while also finishing up her master's degree. Her own mother had had breast cancer, and Richards' doctor had told her to make sure she got a mammogram in her 40's to check for the disease.
Richards says she decided that the next time Saint Alphonsus' mammogram bus came to Kuna, she would go in - just to cross the check-up off her list.
"To be honest, I almost didn't even go, because I was that busy, and I was that sure I was fine, I was safe," she said.
But Richards did end up going out to the mammography bus for a mammogram. Days later, she was called in and given the news she was unprepared for: she had breast cancer.
"It was a very, very painful time to get that diagnosis, to go through treatment," she said. "But four years later, I am still here."
Richards delivered her remarks Monday to mark the unveiling of Saint Alphonsus' new Mobile Mammography Coach, a bright-pink bus that hospital officials have dubbed "Stella."
The bus was paid for with money raised during the 2019 Festival of Trees. The more than $700,000 collected during that fundraiser also paid for the hospital's other mobile mammogram unit, "Lola," to be upgraded with better 3-D technology.
Jackie Babb, the regional director for women and childrens' services for Saint Alphonsus, said that technology - which is also installed on Stella - catches cancer earlier and reduces the need for follow-up diagnostic tests.
"3-D mammography the gold standard for breast cancer detection, and this modality offers improved sensitivity and specificity in imaging, which ultimately improves the quality of images that the radiologists view," she said.
The doctor's-office-on-wheels layout means that the buses can travel to more remote areas around the region, rather than women having to make an appointment and travel to the closest city for a mammogram, President and CEO Odette Bolano added, hailing it as "another step forward in eradicating breast cancer."
"Stella and Lola will allow us to get out into the rural markets to address healthcare inequities," she said.
The Monday event also featured a blessing of the bus and an official ribbon-cutting.
Today, Richards said, she is cancer-free, a gift she credits to the early detection of her cancer on the mammogram bus.
"I look at this bus behind me and I don't just see four tires, I don't just see an engine, I don't just see beautiful paint - I see life-saving equipment," she said. "And as I think of it going about southwest Idaho, our own little corner of the world, it's going to go and find other women like me whose lives are going to be saved."
For more information on the Mobile Mammography program, or to see when a bus will next be coming to your area, visit the website here or call 208-367-3571.
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