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Whetu Pickering was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer, known as triple negative breast cancer.
She was 40 when she found a lump under her arm and went to get it checked out. She didn’t believe she could have breast cancer and thought the lump might be related to treatment she’d just finished for Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT).
But investigations revealed that it was breast cancer and Whetu then had a partial mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
Rebecca Hawkins was only 40 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and says BCAC’s Step by Step support pack helped her to understand and process her diagnosis and treatment.
The mum-to-four-boys was diagnosed after her GP sent her for a mammogram when he found lumps in her breast following a regular breast exam.
The mammogram identified fibroadenoma, which are small benign lumps in the breast. Her GP sent her to a breast surgeon, who then did a biopsy which revealed a cancerous tumour.
Penelope was diagnosed with HER2-Positive breast cancer after a regular mammogram.
It was only the second mammogram she’d been for, but something untoward was identified and a biopsy revealed that she had breast cancer. “That mammogram saved my life,” she says.
Penelope had a full mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation treatment and is currently being treated with Herceptin and tamoxifen.
The 49-year-old’s treatment was complicated by other health issues and she frequently collapsed due to anaemia exhaustion.
Greer Davis knows a thing or two about cancer. Her Mum has had breast cancer. Her Dad died of a brain tumour in 2009. And at the age of only 25, Greer herself was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The Auckland woman was shell-shocked to discover in 2012 that she had an aggressive form of breast cancer at such a young age.
“I freaked out. You just get this knot of fear in your stomach because it’s all so unknown and when they start talking about mastectomies it’s all quite scary,” she says of her diagnosis.
She had sought medical help when she discovered a lump in her breast after several months of tenderness.
Breast cancer has dealt Angela Litterick-Biggs a death sentence. But the Wellington woman refuses to accept defeat and lives her life with an energy and passion that’s truly extraordinary.
It was Angela Litterick-Biggs’ worst birthday ever. On the day she turned 41, only a couple of years after her mother died of cancer, Angela was told she had breast cancer.
A week later she was told that the cancer was incurable. It had spread from her breast to her spine. Doctors could not cure the cancer. They could only try to control it.
Breast cancer has dealt Angela Litterick-Biggs a death sentence. But the Wellington woman refuses to accept defeat and lives her life with an energy and passion that’s truly extraordinary.
It was Angela Litterick-Biggs’ worst birthday ever. On the day she turned 41, only a couple of years after her mother died of cancer, Angela was told she had breast cancer.
A week later she was told that the cancer was incurable. It had spread from her breast to her spine. Doctors could not cure the cancer. They could only try to control it.
'Show your Heart' was a fundraising campaign BCAC held in 2012. While this campaign is no longer running you can still contribute to BCAC via our donation page. We are very grateful for all donations we receive.
Show your heart for women living with breast cancer by donating to BCAC to help us make life better for New Zealanders with breast cancer and their families.
You can make a contribution by donating to BCAC directly here.
Find out more about the breast cancer survivors supporting BCAC:
Around 150 women under the age of 40 will be diagnosed with breast cancer in New Zealand each year and these women face many concerns that their older counterparts do not have to confront.
BCAC committee member Greer Davis understands these issues all too well. She is one of the 150 - she was diagnosed with breast cancer last year at the age of only 25.
She recently attended the annual conference for young women affected by breast cancer C4YW to hear a range of presenters discuss the issues and concerns that are specific to young women with breast cancer. This year’s conference was held in Seattle, in the USA and was co-hosted by Living Beyond Breast Cancer (www.lbbc.com) and Young Survival Coalition (www.youngsurvival.org).
Researchers have for the first time calculated by how much radiation therapy for breast cancer increases the risk of heart disease and the findings can now be used by doctors to help treat patients more appropriately.
The research, by scientists at the University of Oxford and in Scandinavia and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, looked at more than 2,000 women treated with radiation therapy in Denmark and Sweden.
They found that the risk of radiation-related heart disease was real, but that for most women it was small.
