Marie's Story

I have been a member of BCN NZ since 1998 and joined the committee in 2000. The committee of Breast Cancer Network NZ is a wonderful group of ladies to be working with. The benefit of information education and knowledge in the Upfront newsletter has helped me enormously. The women on the committee have mostly all had breast cancer and work tirelessly to help others and share information to make the experience that other women, have a safer journey.

I have always been aware of Breast cancer in the family and so have always had regular mammograms from the age of 35 yrs. I was told to increase this because of the family history to have an ultrasound every alternate 6 months. The first ultrasound I had showed the breast lump. This was in 2000 and I was nearly 60yrs old. Since then I have had an operation for ovarian cancer. After having the mastectomy I knew there must have been some reason why so many members of the family had had cancer. My daughter died of breast cancer, my Mother and my grandmother all had breast cancer. There have been 16 members in the family through 4 generations that have had cancer.

The surgeon suggested that I should have prophylactic surgery however I felt I was being rushed into a decision. I decided to take the time to get a second opinion. I discussed my options with another surgeon at different consulting rooms and he was of the opinion that it would not be of benefit to me to have more major surgery than what I needed at the time.

I also talked to a few women who had similar surgery. One lady had a single mastectomy and no reconstruction. This was a great benefit to me to help make my decision. This delay took 2 weeks from diagnosis to operation.

After my mastectomy I had the genetic test which revealed I had the BRAC1 gene.

I then contacted the kConFab Consortium Australia who is doing research into familial breast cancer. They have a department at the Auckland hospital. They want any family members who have had any first-degree family relative with breast or ovarian cancer. They follow where your ancestors came from. How much exercise did you do as a teenager, how many children have you had, how long did you breast feed and other questions. This will benefit research for the next generation.

I had a mastectomy and because there was no lymph glands involved I did not need any other treatment. I was fortunate to have this operation with St Marks and they were involved through the university, in a study of women after breast cancer. We had 2 facilitators and we met for 12 weeks and there were 9 wonderful women in our group. We were directed in meditation, visualisation, journalling, reducing stress and other mediums that have had amazing benefits to us over the years. We were encouraged to challenge and use self-healing techniques to enhance our own treatment and healing. The psychological questionnaires were filled in every 6 months for 2 years. The idea was that self-help could make a difference to our healing. This concept was adapted from "Skills for Healing" by Alastair Cunningham. Our group of women have formed a great bond with each other and meet up still every 2 months or so.

I have since been to a remarkable naturopath. Her enthusiasm and knowledge along with suggestions of diet and supplements are all aimed at keeping me well.

Marie's Story

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