This One Isn't About Skincare

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Normally, if you land in the koppā Journal, I'd be talking about skin. Or aging. Or some ingredient I have spent an unreasonable amount of time reading about.

This one isn't about skincare.

This one is about getting checked.

Because four years ago I found a lump in my breast, not because I was checking, but by accident.

And if I am completely honest, I wasn't regularly checking before that. If at all.

Of course I knew I was supposed to. Every woman has heard it at some point.

But I was healthy. I didn't smoke. I had no family history of breast cancer. I exercised. I generally looked after myself.

Why would it happen to me?

That was genuinely how I thought.

I found the lump, and even then I didn't think it would be cancer.

I had the biopsy and still didn't think it would be cancer.

Then suddenly it was cancer.

I was diagnosed exactly one week before my 50th birthday.

My husband had secretly planned a surprise trip to the Seychelles.

Turns out that wasn't the surprise I got.

I got a fully guided tour of oncology instead.

Not exactly how I thought I'd make turning 50 memorable.

A second biopsy of my lymph nodes confirmed that I had stage 2 breast cancer.

This wasn't going to be something they simply removed and we all moved on from.

I remember sitting there while the doctor told me I had 100% ER/PR-positive invasive ductal carcinoma.

I remember my daughter crying.

I remember my husband crying.

What I don't remember is myself crying.

The other day, four years later, I said to my husband, "Isn't it weird that I didn't cry?"

He looked at me and said, "You were."

I have absolutely no memory of it.

I think that probably says more about receiving a cancer diagnosis than anything particularly profound I could write here.

It is overwhelming.

There is suddenly an entirely new vocabulary you never wanted to learn. Doctors are talking. People are asking questions. Tests are being booked. Decisions are being made.

Everyone around you is emotional, and somehow you are supposed to absorb all of this while understanding that the conversation is about your own body.

A body that is about to radically change.

The next four weeks were a blur.

Scans. Tests. Doctors. More tests. More appointments.

Then a single mastectomy.

Then the months of a chemotherapy combination so many breast cancer patients know simply as the Red Devil, followed by Taxol.

Then 25 rounds of radiation.

I went into all of it determined to be positive.

And I was positive.

But looking back, I also think I was in denial.

Both things can apparently be true at the same time.

For months there was simply too much going on to stop and think about what had actually happened.

Doctors.

Nurses.

Oncology.

Blood tests.

Physio.

Scans.

Treatment.

Recovery.

Another appointment.

Another thing to get through.

It wasn't until roughly a year after active treatment finished that everything became quiet.

And that was when it really hit me.

There is the part of cancer that happens during treatment.

Then there is the part that happens after everyone tells you treatment is over.

They are not the same thing.

And this is the part no one really tells you about.

During treatment there is a plan.

There is always a next appointment. A next blood test. A next infusion. A next scan. Someone is watching you. Someone is telling you what happens next.

Your hand is held every step of the way.

Then active treatment finishes and everyone is relieved.

You are relieved.

Your family is relieved.

From the outside it looks like you are done.

Except you aren't.

Your body may be different.

Your confidence may be different.

Your relationship with your health is definitely different.

There can still be medication, side effects, fear, fatigue and physical changes.

In my case there was also a five-year hormone-treatment protocol that turned out to be much harder than I had expected.

And suddenly there is far less noise around you while you are trying to work out what your life looks like now.

I don't think I was prepared for that part at all.

Why wouldn't it happen to me?

Cancer changed the way I think about risk.

Before I was diagnosed, somewhere in the back of my mind was the question:

Why would it happen to me?

Now I think:

Why wouldn't it happen to me?

I'm not special.

I'm not exempt.

I'm just as vulnerable as the next person.

Being healthy didn't make me untouchable.

Having no family history didn't make me untouchable.

Cancer wasn't reserved for somebody else's life.

It sounds obvious when I write it now.

It did not feel obvious to me before.

Breast cancer does not belong to one kind of woman

One of the things that stayed with me from treatment was the women around me.

Different ages.

Different races.

Different nationalities.

Different jobs.

Different financial circumstances.

There were women with enormous wealth and resources sitting in the same oncology environment as women whose lives looked completely different.

This is not a disease of the rich.

It is not a disease of the poor.

It does not belong to one type of woman.

My oncologist told me that the vast majority of the women he treated were being treated for breast cancer.

That shocked me.

Until you actually spend time around oncology, breast cancer can still feel like a statistic.

Inside an oncology ward, it stops feeling theoretical very quickly.

My oncoplastic surgeon also told me about women she had treated in their twenties.

That stayed with me too.

Women the same age as my daughter.

I had always unconsciously associated breast cancer with being older.

I don't anymore.

Know your normal

If there is one practical thing I want another woman to take from my experience, it is this:

Know your own body.

Know what is normal for you.

I have a reminder set on my phone for the 15th of every month to pay attention to my breasts.

Yes, even after having breast cancer I still need a reminder.

That is the reality of real life.

We forget.

We get busy.

There is always something that feels more urgent.

For me, the reminder simply means I don't keep putting myself at the bottom of the list.

And breast cancer is not always a lump.

Changes in the breast or nipple, swelling, skin changes, dimpling, discharge or persistent changes that are unusual for you can all be reasons to speak to a healthcare professional.

Susan G. Komen has a very clear visual guide showing what to look for and explaining that warning signs are not the same for every woman.

Not sure what to look for? See Susan G. Komen's breast cancer warning signs guide.

And if you notice something that concerns you, get it checked.

Don't dismiss it because you are busy.

Don't dismiss it because you are young.

Don't dismiss it because you are healthy.

Don't dismiss it because no one in your family has had breast cancer.

And don't dismiss it because you are worried somebody is going to think you are overreacting.

My daughter was 24 when I was diagnosed.

She now has a family history because of me.

She gets checked, and because of her age, she has had to advocate for herself to make that happen.

That is another thing cancer taught me.

Sometimes you have to ask.

Sometimes you have to ask again.

Sometimes you have to go somewhere else and ask somebody different.

I was extraordinarily fortunate to have health insurance that did not say no at every stage of the process.

Not every woman has that experience.

Some women have to advocate very hard simply to be heard.

If something genuinely feels wrong, take yourself seriously.

I don't want this article to scare you

That isn't why I wrote it.

Cancer is not automatically a death sentence.

There are extraordinary doctors, treatments and researchers doing extraordinary things.

But cancer does change your life.

It changes the lives of the people who love you too.

And I think pretending otherwise does women a disservice.

There is the medical part.

There is the physical part.

There is the emotional part.

And then there is the strange business of putting your life back together afterward and discovering that "back to normal" is not necessarily where you end up.

My normal changed.

So did I.

Some of those changes I would happily give back.

Others gave me a perspective I probably needed and would never have chosen to acquire this way.

I don't spend much time anymore asking why things happen to me.

That question doesn't have an especially useful answer.

I pay much more attention to what I can actually do something about.

And one of those things is paying attention to my body.

If you've been putting it off

There is no product at the end of this article.

No discount code.

No clever way for me to bring this back around to skincare.

I just want you to do something.

If you are due for breast screening, book it.

If you don't know what screening is appropriate for your age or personal risk, ask your doctor.

If something has changed and you have been quietly hoping it will disappear on its own, get it checked.

If you have been meaning to ask about your family history, ask.

You are not wasting anyone's time by asking a question about your health.

I found my lump by accident.

I will always know how differently my story might have gone if I hadn't.

So if writing this makes even one woman stop postponing an appointment she knows she should make, that is enough for me.

A note from koppā

Breast cancer research is personal to our family.

koppā donates a percentage of all profits to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation to support breast cancer research.

There is nothing to buy here because of that.

It is simply something we believe in supporting.

With much love,

Chantelle

Co-founder, koppā