Check Yo'self {and Love Your Sister}

A few weeks ago I wrote about my recent breast cancer scare. I am lucky that this time it was just a scare. I'm hoping that if there is a next time that again it will just be a scare. There is a good chance though at some stage it might not be; one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime.

During my weeks of waiting for results, the thought that kept crossing my mind, or rather the plea my mind was screaming to the universe was "Please please don't let me have breast cancer as a young woman!" Treatment for breast cancer is improving all the time but young women often have poorer outcomes. This is partially because the cancers detected in young women can be more aggressiv; if oestrogen dependent there are high levels of oestrogen present so they grow more quickly. However one of the most significant issues in the long term survival rates of younger women is lack of detection and misdiagnosis.

How healthy are you?

They say there's a chance I could die of breast cancer,
Or a melanoma
I could die from heart disease
Or even from a brain haemorrhage
Maybe in a car accident
But the fact is, the biggest cause of death for women in my age group is suicide.



I saw this commercial last night and I was shocked. I knew that suicide was a major cause of death for young men, I didn't realise how significant it was for young women too.