As a nurse practitioner in the Revlon/UCLA Breast Center, Sherry Goldman has been teaching women how to perform breast self-examinations for the last decade. She advises: Know your breasts; know them well enough to detect even the smallest changes.

And while self-exams are under scrutiny by some who believe they are ineffective, Sherry Goldman has compelling evidence that they work.

Last March, when she felt a tiny irregularity in her right breast during a self-exam, Goldman knew something wasn't quite right.

"I thought, 'What is this?'" the nurse practitioner recalled. "This is different."

The lump, about the size of a grain of rice, was removed. Two days later, Goldman was told she had breast cancer. But because she checked her breasts regularly and detected the abnormality early, Goldman's prognosis is excellent. After undergoing a lumpectomy and six weeks of radiation, she has a 97% chance that her cancer will not recur.

Even though she has no family history of the disease, doesn't smoke or drink, isn't overweight and exercises regularly, Goldman always suspected that she might one day have to face the disease she helps her patients battle every day.

When it happened, she faced her fate philosophically.

"I look at this as a rock in the path of life. I had to push it aside and forge on," Goldman said. "We all have rocks in our path. No one can get through life without one."

Goldman's own career path was not without a few obstacles. A mother of seven and grandmother of nine, she had always wanted to be a nurse. But she waited until her youngest child's first birthday to return to school, two campuses simultaneously — Santa Monica College to attend nursing school and Cal State Northridge for a bachelor's degree in health science. She later attended UCLA, where she became a certified nurse practitioner.

Now working at the breast center, Goldman offers living proof that regular breast examinations can save lives.

"The best thing for my patients to know is that I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I'm OK," said Goldman, who returned to work full time in August.

"I really want women to know they can get this disease and be OK."