I recently went to my friend Jill’s funeral. She was a great lady and will be missed by all her friends and family. I came away thinking “but for the grace of God”. Why you may ask, well here’s my story. In telling this I am not looking for sympathy but my hope is, is that I may save a life. My Sister has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and has started a long journey to recovery. This is her story to tell, but what I can say is that she probably saved my life. With what was happening with my sister I became more aware of the need to make sure that I made it a regular thing to do a breast examination. While doing so I thought I had found a lump, but because of the position of it I wasn’t sure if I what I was feeling was a lump or just muscle, I probably would have left it but because of my sister I decided to take a trip to my Doctor. On examination my Doctor confirmed that there was a lump there. Things happened pretty quickly after this, due to the position of my tumor and another area on the breast that didn’t look too good I made the decision to have a mastectomy of my right breast. After surgery I received the good news that they got all the cancer and I will not need chemotherapy or radiotherapy. I will be on pills for the next five years and further down the track a breast reconstruction to go through. It is also really important to make sure you do regular breast examinations and not to rely on the mammogram by itself, when I was sent to have an exploratory mammogram by my Doctor, my tumor didn’t show up on this because of where on the breast it was, it did however show up on the ultra sound that I also had. As women we tend to keep things close to our chests , we worry about our families and their needs and I know there are women out there who have been through the same experience but feel that they cannot speak about it because they want to protect their families, or they are afraid of losing their femininity through the loss of a breast or maybe losing their hair through chemotherapy. I can’t comment on the hair lose but can on losing a breast. Yes it was strange looking at myself and seeing one breast gone and a scar where the other use to be, it was strange when in my night dress, seeing a normal breast shape and just a flat space on the other side, but as anyone in Christchurch would know this has just become the “new normal”. Yes I have lost a breast, it’s done its job, it feed by daughter, it filled out one side of my bra and made me look symmetrical, but it’s not an arm or leg, I don’t need it to walk or to hug my family. I have been given good padding to put in my bra before my reconstruction is done. If you didn’t know that I’d had surgery you probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, unless of course I haven’t pinned it in properly and it migrates upwards and them I’m a bit lopsided. What I’d like to say to the ladies out there who have a family history of breast cancer or who have never had a mammogram because they just haven’t gotten around to it or they are scared don’t put it off. Yes Mammogram’s aren’t the most comfortable things in the world, but they don’t hurt. What would hurt more is seeing the pain in the eyes of your family and friends if you were to do nothing and were dying of cancer. Can I ask you to share this post with your friends on your Facebook page, you can help me to get my story out to as many people as possible in the hope that in doing so we can save someone’s life, as my sister did for me. Kind regards, Paula Langrope Christchurch, New Zealand
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 05:52:11 +0000
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