People often take breast cancer for granted, thinking that it’ll never happen to them. Let’s put that into perspective.
Things that can harm you physically, such as accidents, you can avoid in your best state of consciousness. Theft or robbery, maybe, if you take full precaution of your surroundings. The same goes for rape and murder. But cancer?
If you know someone who has had to go through chemotherapy, radiation, or a surgical removal of a tumor, remember that the said person is a human being, just like you. Someone (like any other person) who thought that it would never happen to her too – until it happened.
Maybe a young woman might think, “I’m only 25, I’m too young to have breast cancer”. True, statistically, it has shown that most advanced breast cancer cases are found in women over age 50. Keywords being “most advanced breast cancer cases”. In rare cases, a female as young as 10 years of age can have the disease.
Hannah Powell Auslam shocked the medical world when doctors discovered that lump she thought was her rib cage was in fact a malignant tumour in one of her breasts. At fifth grade, Hannah had a mastectomy. Then, she had to go through chemotherapy. Before her story came to light, the youngest breast cancer patient was a 16-year-old.
You’re 25 years of age? Where does that leave you?
Watch this video of breast cancer survivors as they share their stories:
Over the course of a lifetime, 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. And in 2008, breast cancer caused 458,503 deaths worldwide. Breast cancer risk factors such as your genes and family history cannot be controlled. However, eating a healthy diet (limited processed and red meat) and making a few lifestyle changes (limited alcohol consumption) may reduce your overall chance of getting cancer.
For more information visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s website.
