BALTIMORE —

A Baltimore County woman is sharing her story about a sometimes unfamiliar form of cancer.

Cancer comes in many forms: Some people may be familiar with the Breast Cancer Susceptibility (BRCA) gene mutations, but what about checkpoint kinase 2 (CHEK2)?

Carolynn Carey is a 54-year-old sister, mother and grandmother from Middle River who is also a breast cancer survivor. Just like any other woman, she started to get her yearly mammogram at age 40.

"It starts at 42, when I had a mammogram done, and they found a tumor, and they first thought it was like stage II. Let's just have surgery and we'll decide there how far we go with treatments. And, after surgery, I came out stage III, so it spread to my lymph nodes," Carey said.

She knew she had breast cancer but didn't yet know th

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