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I never thought that I would be diagnosed with breast cancer, especially not at the age of 26. Was I shocked when I was told? Yes and no. I am from New York originally but I have been living here in Ireland for a number of years. The county I lived in in New York is the highest county for breast cancer in the whole of America. So when I was first diagnosed I wasn’t totally in shock – but you always think, its never going to be me.
I had symptoms for a while before I went to get checked because as I said – I never thought it would be me.
The symptoms I had, which can be different for everyone, was that I had very sore breasts. But the pain was getting worse and worse and then blood started to leak from my nipple. Even when that happened, I let it be and didn’t go to the doctor for at least 3 months- looking back that was very stupid, but I wasn’t in a great place at the time.
Eventually after my then father-in-law insisted that I go to the hospital, the doctors did a needle biopsy on me. The results came back that I didn’t have breast cancer and they said that I was fine. I was so relieved. They did a lumpectomy just to be safe and the doctors said I should be fine.
Following the removal of the lump I got a call from the hospital asking me to come in and discuss the results. I should have thought calling me in wasn’t good news but I wasn’t expecting bad new as they had already told me I didn’t have breast cancer. I didn’t even think my husband at the time, I have since divorced, should come in with me.
Looking back I should have known – they called me in last. I went in, not even thinking anything bad – and then they told me – ‘look you actually do have cancer’ the doctors said. I replied ‘no this can’t be, you told me three weeks ago that I was fine’.
The doctor explained that if you can imagine the lump is like an apple and the cancer is like the core. The needle only hit the left of the core where there is no cancer. A misleading diagnosis is not right for any woman – to be told I was OK and then that I wasn’t fine.
After they told me I was just in complete shock. I went from having a completely normal life to the thinking – ‘oh my god I could die’.
The shock of it makes you say some things you normally wouldn’t say so the first thing that I asked was ‘can I breast feed’, even though I was not even thinking about having children at that stage.
Everyone I have talked to who has had breast cancer, seems to have that shock moment where they say something completely strange like ‘no i cant have breast cancer as I am going on holiday next week’. Its like your brain cant handle the news that you have just heard.
To deal with your mortality at any age is hard, and to have to deal with it so young is even harder. I kept thinking that I haven’t done all the things that I wanted to do in life.
After they told me I left the hospital. I had walked there as I wasn’t too far and I was just crying the entire way home. When I told husband and his family everyone was in shock but telling my parents was the toughest thing.
To have to tell them I was ill - i was living in a foreign country and I am an only child – they were just so upset & worried. It was a very difficult call to make.
I was told the only way to get rid of the cancer was to get a mastectomy. So to be told first that your ill, you could die and you are going to lose your breast. It was all hard to digest it.
I called my gynaecologist in America who is also my next door neighbour in New York and I asked her a lot of questions about what was going to happen and what to expect. She told me that I was going to survive this and said if they wanted to take two breasts to let them take two breasts so long as your alive. My attitude from then was I am going to survive this – I was only 26, I wanted to live my life. I still had all these aspirations and dreams that I wanted to fulfil. I want to live that is all i wanted to do.
I didn’t focus on the fact that i could die, I focused on what I wanted to do with my life. I tried to find out as much information as possible, so that i could make the best decisions possible. I had to focus on the positives – yes I did lose a breast but they offered reconstruction the same time they removed the breast. This was the first year that they were doing this. Previous to this you had to wait for up to two years before reconstructive surgery could be done. All I wanted was to wake up with two breasts.
I thought to myself – I will lose a breast but thankfully I will receive a new breast. And psychologically, for myself, it was great to be able to wake up with two breasts.
It is not always easy to focus on the positive. You do have your moments where you worry – what if they didn’t get it, what if it spreads and you start to worry about your whole body then. At the end of the day when surgery was over and i had gone through my recovery, I decided to do a kind of bucket list. I wrote down all the things I wanted to do. Since my recovery I have done a lot of the things I always wanted to like travel around the world. I am now engaged and expecting my first baby.
Looking back now, at age 38, I would never leave it so long to get checked again. Unfortunately the media, the government and the doctors keep saying go get checked after the age of 35 – which upsets me as I had breast cancer at 26. I have talked to women who have had it before 30 and if we all waited that long to go get checked we could all be dead now.
Thank god I didn’t wait any longer. My message to others is that there is life after breast cancer. Women need to be proactive about their health – even if you don’t have symptoms like myself, even if you are not bleeding from the nipple and you are under 30, please go and get a mammogram. Early detection gives you the best possibility of survival. I unfortunately lost my breast to breast cancer, but thankfully I didn’t lose my life.
The Irish Cancer Society’s Survivorship Programme, sponsored by Irish skincare brand Elave, will donate €1 from selected Elave products from April to the end of May.
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Formerly the most stable state in the Middle-East. Hundreds of thousands dead and fundamental islamists set to capitalize on it. All because they decided to talk about pricing oil in Euro instead of the US dollar.
Truly terrifying what you can do with public opinion and a large military budget.
They’ve had a horrible last 50 years. First Saddam, now this. Terrible.
Re R H Beige Lark.
Well said. Libya was invaded for the same reason. It was going to take oil payments in anything, commodities, gold, euro etc. The threat to the Petrodollar was too much. I’m afraid Iran will go the same way unless they start taking payments in dollars again for their oil.
The US is a country teetering on the brink financially and the last thing they want is any upstart threatening to stop using Petrodollars. I believe the US government knows it is close to the abyss and hence the Sandy Hook massacre and Boston bombing events which have been orchestrated and planned to take more rights away from citizens, especially attempt to get high powered weapons away from people with subsequent pre planned legislation.
Libya actually had an excellent way of ending debt in African countries, they were about to introduce an African gold standard that countries would have to use to pay for African commodities
Couple of weeks later Libya is no more and the other African leaders are put back in their place
Gaddafi actually had some very bright ideas to make the middle east a very financially stable region, unfortunately it involve a threat to the petroldollar. If Libya and the others involve put their plan into action it would have put the dollar into a early grave by showing it’s true overwashed value. But hey they showed us that Libya, afgan and Iraq were evil countries that were a threat to mankind. We found the true hero’s in the middleeast like Saudi Arabia were it’s traditional to stone a woman to for wearing a dress that exposes flesh.
Sandy hook was orchestrated?! What a despicable comment!
You mean the same Iraq that gassed their own civilians? Or the same Libya which was trying to establish a modern empire of its own by invading and trying to annex Mali?
Rose-tinted glasses work both ways.
Seoirse, you are reaching a low with your comments. You are reading from the same script as b Lowe.
Niall, so if a African country receives gold for commodities what happens then? Please elaborate? There is a reason why the gold standard was dropped. Not every country has reserves of gold so how would they trade with Africa?
Must make a correction, I was referring to Libyan expansionism in Chad, not any involvement in Mali.
Re Niall.
You are exactly right with the gold dinar system Gaddafi was close to implementing.
The French President st the time, President Sarkozy, called it the greatest threat on history to the financial existence of mankind(wherein mankind for Sarkozy was France and a handful of other Western countries).
Imagine a system that was one of the greatest threats to mankind as described by an imperialist and it received zero coverage in Western media outlets.
Ah yes, the great legacy of the US/UK unprovoked illegal invasion and the papers still play the pipers tune.
A recent survey on the UK found the majority of people think fewer than 10,000 have died in Iraq since the invasion. Good to see Western media is giving an unbiased and objective accounting of Iraq over the years.
How can George Bush look in the mirror with all the murders and killings he has caused. He should be strung up and locked away for life and charged with war crimes!!! It breaks my heart every time I read about this :(
Sunni and Shia Muslims where killing each other centuries before anybody ever heard of George Bush or even America for that matter.
Re Al Shamen.
Yes, your point is valid but it is an inconsequential one.
The point is as a result of US stupidity this has been allowed to fester and there is an abundance of weapons available for these guys mow since General Petraeus started to arm these guys.
Iraq has always been awash with weapons.Apparently most households have access to an AK47.
Most of the weapons Al Qaeda use are Eastern Bloc.America has a lot to answer for but you cannot blame them for a centuries old sectarian feud that predates the foundation of that country.
Al Shamen – The US is awash with weapons too. Apparently most households have access to something that shoots bullets and they want to keep it that way. People get killed there in their droves on a daily basis and their human rights record is frankly appalling. There has also been civil war, sectarian strife and effective apartheid in the US within the last century. It has also engaged in criminal foreign wars. Again it is an irrelvancy to what has been said here.
Nobody has blamed the US for there having been age-old sectarianism in Iraq – though the CIAs involvement in keeping various factions at war is legendary – but people are right to expect the US to answer for its actions in recent times and to expect some sort of defence of those actions without it pulling in excuses like “there was always trouble so we can be excused of what we did to them”.
Well it was America who formed and funded the Al Queda to help them against the Russians, so America does have alot to answer for.
Democracy, don’t ya just love it! They do!
Every dog on the street knows the invasion was based on utter lies and a direct consequence of those lies is one and half million people dead……..spreading democracy ?? spreading death and destruction !!
Freedom!
Well Mr jingles freedom is what we have but when I look around all I see is people trapped in financial pain, there is a big problem with the system
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