By:LARRY MAIER
First and foremost, Rosemary Fricke of Baldwin says she is happy to be alive.
Fricke, 59, credits the Nassau University Medical Center's free, mobile mammography program with saving her life. A mammography she had done back in October detected a malignant mass in a breast. She was able to have the mass surgically removed a month later and considers herself fortunate to be a survivor.
But with Fricke's joy comes pain. Pain stemming from a previous mammogram done by a private radiology group that was not read properly, causing her to believe she was healthy when, in fact, she was not. Fricke can't help but think that something less invasive could have been done earlier to treat the mass, when it was smaller.
And when she and husband Eric had medical insurance.
Fricke is now cancer-free, but saddled with over $16,000 dollars in medical expenses. A state law prevents her from suing the doctors who misread her 1997 mammography. Because of her mounting bills, Fricke worries about what she will do if she needs further medical care. She also worries that there are other women out there who may have breast cancer but, because of infrequent mammograms or misreadings, don't know it.
In December 1997, Fricke went to get a routine mammography.
Her husband had suffered a heart attack in 1995 and retired from his job as a butcher a year later, but the couple still had medical insurance that paid for the mammography and would have covered any other medical expenses.
Fricke was delighted when her results came back negative.
Then in September 2000, Fricke, who was now without health insurance, received a letter from county Legis. Joseph Scannell's office announcing a free mammography program for uninsured county residents.
She made an appointment and went to Scannell's Grand Avenue office to have the procedure done.
A few days later, Fricke received a call from the Nassau University Medical Center. A nurse told her that her mammogram was suspicious
