For Breast Cancer Survivor Tonya Allen, Giving Back Is Second Nature 

By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times Bessemer, Alabama, native Tonya Allen remembers a trip to St. Vincent’s Hospital (now Ascension St. Vincent’s Birmingham) in 2020 for a routine checkup. “My doctor is my [Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.], sister Brenda Taylor. She likes to sit down and hash things over. I said, ‘OK, I’ve got to get back to work now.’ I had already had a 2D mammogram previously, and that day she actually ordered 2D and 3D mammograms that were able to pick up something on my right breast. [I] went through Christmas worrying, and by the second week of January they confirmed that I had being diagnosed with breast cancer,” Allen recalled. “Here I am thinking I was at the top of my game,” she added. “I was a student at [the University of] West Alabama, working on my certification to become an administrator.” Mammogram Options According to BreastCancer.org, “Two types of mammograms are available in the United States: 3D mammograms—also called digital breast tomosynthesis, digital tomosynthesis, or just tomosynthesis—and 2D digital mammograms. Both 2D and 3D mammograms are done in the same way and take the same amount of time. A 3D mammogram creates a 3D...