It is crazy enough to see the breast as an external organ so prone to cancerous tumors.
To add salt to an injury no gender is exempted from breast tumor/lump growths.
Let’s drift, a little story time…
Sarah’s grandma has been feeling pain on her underarms and axilla. Of cause Sarah as a medical student is being questioned every day by her grandma.
Questions like, Sarah why do my underarms hurt so bad, I can feel my breasts seem more heavy than usual ( lol 😆 I keep telling Mama what if it’s menstruation signs Deep down I know it’s impossible because Mama is 61 years old already). Mama keeps laughing because she sees white-ish milk substances from her breast every time she takes a shower.
I called my mum’s attention to Grandma daily complaint, as grandma sang this complaint to my ears I repeated them in my mum’s ears like a lullaby. Mummy got so worried as grandma doesn’t just complain about these signs and symptoms but she stinks these days because of the liquid substance from her right breast. Mum scheduled an appointment with our family doctor ( Dr Olushegu Shadrach ) and mum met him to share her worries on grandma symptoms. Doctor reassured mummy that grandma would be fine if she takes her daily routine drugs and habal medicine but mum beyond reasonable doubt knew something was off with grandma.
4 months later grandma right breast has swollen so big that it was a call of concern to everyone at home, we took grandma to a private hospital and on getting there she had to undergo an immediate surgery because grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer, ( during surgery her right breast was removed and the left breast was placed under supervision because the cancer has spread to that part of grandma breast) 3 weeks later grandma left breast was removed and given to a histopathologist to confirm the nature of the pathological disease ( the left breast was also diagnosed with cancer).
This last few month has been stressful for everyone at home because grandma has been discharged from the hospital yet gives complain that she can’t breathe well and feels her chest is tight. After 2 weeks of ignoring grandma complain mum had to rush grandma to the same private hospital for further check up.
Doctor checked grandma thoroughly and discovered her recently removed breast tumors affected her lungs and she’s be diagnosed of lung cancer. As sad as the whole family felt, the doctor said grandma would pass away in few weeks from now as her lungs is seriously infected.
With my eyes full of tears 😭 Grandma left Earth last week because of cancer, breast cancer took Granny away from us. Mum came home after Granny’s burial saying breast cancer is hereditary and we are at high risk of developing breast cancer as every female and male is prone to it.
Nothing scares me more like death, as a medical student I have contacted my profs in school and still making research to end cancer before it ends me.
Back to reality…
In my recent training sessions, I have seen a cut section of breast tumours and how big they can be, the correct size of a human breast varies from size to size according to a woman’s body weight. A recently processed breast tissue weighed over 80 grams for a lady whose total body weighs less than 120 grams.
It’s Alarming and a call of concern that we have over 60% of patient in the hospital because of this same breast cancer and over 83 – 97% of walk in patients in a histopathology laboratory comes in with breast tumour specimens. Ranging from 14yrs of age to 91 years ( no age bracket is safe)
We need to raise awareness for breast cancer.
Where does breast cancer grow?
Breast cancer affects both breasts and no areas are excluded. From your underarm area, to the axila upper outer, lower outer and tail of Spence ( towards your chest region)
SIGNS OF BREAST CANCER TO LOOK OUT FOR.
It’s hard to detect these symptoms if you do not examine your breasts before menstral cycle and after menstral cycle you shouldn’t wait till your breasts feels heavy before you know how to acts towards what pain you might feel.
BREAST SELF-EXAMINATION THAT HELPS.
Breast Cancer is hereditary and can be non-hereditary ( how do I mean?) If your mum, aunty, grandaunty, uncle or grandma suffered from breast cancer or is a cancer survivor. It only means that YOU ARE AT A HIGH RISK OF SUFFERING FROM BREAST CANCER NOW OR LATER IN LIFE. But don’t fidget, fight against breast cancer now and practice your self examination to enable you detect breast cancer early.
For breast cancer being non-hereditary it simply means your parent or family might not have suffered this BUT YOU CAN due to environmental factors and chemicals. Always practice your self-examination to detect breast cancer on time.
MEDMIMI 