This Young Kiwi Woman’s Lump Turns Out To Be a Small but Aggressive Breast Cancer
A young woman recently shared her story following the discovery of a small lump in her armpit while she was removing her fake tan and how, in a second, she said, her life was "tipped upside down" after the distressing diagnosis.
Daily Mail reported that 24-year-old Tash Mitchell found the small lump while washing off her tan last year, but her GP told her the symptom was near "certainly only an exposed lymph node."
With the lump not disappearing one month after it was discovered, Mitchell, a sales manager from Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand, was referred to a breast specialist.
A series of tests confirmed, the young woman had "stage two triple-positive breast cancer," and a tiny tumor that needed a quick treatment due to its aggressiveness to possibly spread.
A study that the Breast Cancer Foundation NZ published found that one in every six Kiwi women below 45 years old never have their breasts checked for changes.
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The Tiny Lump that Delayed Her Wedding
Last year, Mitchell said she discovered a tiny lump under her armpit she later found to be a very small yet an aggressive breast cancer.
Declared this year as cancer-free, this Kiwi woman underwent chemotherapy for four months. And now that her illness is gone, she has opened up and told her story about her illness as part of a campaign dubbed, "Changed and Check," which encourages women to monitor their breast health.
According to Mitchell, one of the most crushing parts of her diagnosis was actually not the vision of losing her hair, but having delayed her wedding.
"It was devastating," she said, hearing her life was more or less, tipped upside down in just a second. "All of the unknown was overwhelming," a news outlet reported.
She also said, "It was enough to get the better of me" if she did nothing about it, and all her doctors kept saying she was fortunate to have discovered it.
Mitchell also shared that having discovered her tumor shrink by 75 percent following an extensive procedure, she found a new life viewpoint because of her experience.
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An Experience that Changed Her Perspective
Her experience, the cancer survivor, indeed changed her perspective, not to mention how she thinks about and deals with things.
"We all have nitty-gritty things but I just think, I get to stand up every day on my own two feet," she continued, adding how she felt good about getting another shot at life, not to mention how grateful she is for that.
This Kiwi woman's ardent hope now is that her treatment does not affect her from having children in the future. She was lucky enough to fertilize six eggs via IVF treatment.
The Change and Check Campaign
The Change and Check campaign is being led by Sarah Gandy, a broadcaster in New Zealand who, at age 36, was also diagnosed with breast cancer.
The campaign, she said, encourages all women to monitor their breasts' health and to undergo testing should they notice some changes.
Everyone knows the "signs of cold," the broadcaster explained, adding, "How great it would be" if women had that similar level of knowledge on that their breasts are telling them.
Meanwhile, a study that the Breast Cancer Foundation NZ published found that one in every six Kiwi women below 45 years old never have their breasts checked for changes.
More so, nearly one in eight respondents of the said study aged below 45 years have "ignored a lump or other symptom," instead of getting it checked by a doctor.
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Oct 05, 2020 08:00 AM EDT
