Today is the first day of October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness month. It's also my first October as a breast cancer patient in active treatment.

In July this year I was diagnosed with an aggressive type of breast cancer (HER2 positive). In September I started treatment: starting off with chemotherapy (I've already completed 5 cycles out of 16), after which I will undergo surgery to remove the tumor, followed by radiation therapy and several more months of maintenance to hopefully keep the cancer from recurring.

I'm sharing this information so publicly because I want to tell everyone how very important it is to know your body, because early detection can save lives! 

It’s estimated that 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lives. For younger women it’s much more rare - but not as rare as you’d think.

In our 30s, the risk of getting breast cancer is 1 in about 200.

Think about your female colleagues from work, your friends from school and university, the people you interact with when you go out for food, groceries, activities; the women you follow on Instagram. One in 200 of us will have breast cancer in our 30s. 

(Chances are if you are reading this, you already know at least one 😇)

Breast cancer also affects men! About 1% of breast cancer patients are men. 

Anybody with breast tissue can get breast cancer, literally Any Body.

The thing with breast cancer in young women is that it is quite a bit more dangerous. 

Research shows that on average, women diagnosed at age 40 or younger are 30% more likely to die from breast cancer than women diagnosed at age 51 to 60.

There are a few reasons for this:

1️⃣ Breast cancers affecting younger women biologically tend to be more aggressive and spread faster (e.g. triple negative and HER2 positive);

2️⃣ Younger women tend to become diagnosed with breast cancer at more advanced stages. This also happens for a few reasons:

🅰️ We are more difficult to diagnose due to the density of our breast tissue. As a result, ultrasound imaging will not always pick up early stage cancers. Mammograms aren’t even offered for routine screening in most countries until the age of 45 or 50.

🅱️ Due to the low probability of it being cancer at a young age, we tend to have our symptoms dismissed or be misdiagnosed. There is no such things as being “too young for cancer”.

Once a young woman is diagnosed with breast cancer, often it is at a more advanced stage and it is of a more aggressive subtype, which means the probability of the cancer spreading outside of the breast is higher. 

Cancer that spreads to distant parts of the body is the one that is most likely to kill us.

Unfortunately we still don't know what causes cancer and how we can protect ourselves. So what can you do?

#1 Know your body and self-examined yourself. You need to be able to know when you feel changes occurring to your body. Establish a regular routine and self-examine regularly. Like once a month, on the 1st day of the month (that's today!!)

#2 Get routine screening and check-ups, especially if you are a women under the age of 40. Mammograms aren't even offered in most countries for women below the age of 50. But if you can get one, or an ultrasound, please do and don't postpone your appointments.

I've been sharing my treatment journey on Instagram every week from my chemotherapy chair. Please join me if you'd like to see how I'm doing 💕