"Had I not seen that photo, I would have assumed that it was an indentation from the underwire of my bra," Chieze, 38, a nursing student at West Hills College in Lemoore, California, told CNN.
Within five days of noticing the indentation, she was told she likely had breast cancer. A month later, doctors told her it was stage IV; the cancer had metastasized outside the breast.
"I knew all about self exams," Chieze wrote on Facebook last week, "but a picture of what to look for keyed me into knowing I had a terminal disease."