Beating my Chest: My sister & I were diagnosed with cancer just one hour apart
If ever there was a ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ tale to tell then I’m about to tell you a big one: my sister and I were both diagnosed with breast cancer on the same day.
In different states, just one hour apart.
Although with me in Sydney, Australia and my sister in Perth, Western Australia, we have had vastly different experiences.
I hope that raising my voice and using my position as a journalist will not only help save the women who come after me, but that changes can be made to the cancer screening system I believe has flaws.
It’s also a story of survival, of not taking your life for granted and taking control of your health.
I’d buried my head in the sand. Three years had passed since my last mammogram and I only decided to have one because my sister was having one too. (We’d both had issues with benign cysts in the past, but because we didn’t have a history of cancer in the family, there was no urgency.)
Neither my sister nor I had any lumps or any other symptoms; it was just routine. I took myself to my local public breast screening clinic (BreastScreen NSW), and I was so relaxed about it I took one of my teenage sons with me so we could grab lunch afterwards.
