Martina Navratilova has had two very different forms of cancer and she still considers herself lucky.
After having a lumpectomy and undergoing radiation therapy in 2010 for a non-invasive form of breast cancer, the tennis legend found out she was diagnosed with Stage 1 throat and Stage 1 breast cancer in January.
The now-66-year-old thought only two years had passed since her annual mammogram screening but it turned out she had waited four years -- a regular miscalculation patients make when it comes to preventative care.
"I was lucky my diagnosis probably happened the last year over those four years," Navratilova exclusively told NBC Local Sports on Monday at the American Cancer Society's Hope Lodge. "If it had been at the beginning, it could have been a different story."
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That's the moment Navratilova decided to make her story public and warn others who put their preventative care and screenings off.
"Some cancers are slow, too many of the breast cancers are really fast," Navratilova said. "Every week counts, every month counts -- the sooner you get diagnosed, the better outcome you have -- it's literally a question of life and death."
To Navratilova's point, breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women (after lung cancer). Approximately 1 in 39 women will die from breast cancer (about 2.5%), according to the American Cancer Society. But she is no stranger to adversity and battling the deadly disease was no exception.
"First of course I felt sorry for myself but then I immediately -- being a tennis player -- I got into the solution," she said.
The Czech tennis star was ranked the world No.1 in singles for a total of 332 weeks and won 18 Grand Slam singles titles. She also earned 167 career singles titles, an Open-era record.
Supporting the WTA and its ACEing Cancer Campaign is something Navratilova has always been passionate about. The cause became more personal to her when she was diagnosed with cancer.
Per the findings released by the Hologic Global Women's Health Index, more than two billion women worldwide were not tested for any type of cancer, including breast cancer, in the past 12 months.
"I've gotten plenty of letters and tweets from women that were reminded to go take that test [mammogram] and found they have cancer and they dealt with it and survived because of it," Navratilova said.
But how about Navratilova's fellow tennis pros? The harsh reality of playing on the year-long WTA/ATP tour is that there are tournaments nearly every single week, meaning players may have to skip a tournament or two on the calendar to keep up with preventative care.
"If you pull a muscle, you go to the training room right away, you don't go next week, you also don't wait a year if you have a bad injury," Navratilova said. "As an athlete, you think you're indestructible, so strong, because you are physically strong, but this stuff you don't control and cancer certainly doesn't exempt athletes from cancer attacking them."
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. WTA's Hologic has pledged to donate for every ace served in singles competition at all WTA 1000 and 500 tournaments throughout 2003 in an effort to help women around the world beat cancer.
