Adoa News Adoa News
Related Articles
Breast cancer results from DNA mutations where structure cells grow out of control in the breast. Over the years breast cancer has been the most dominant cancer, affecting women majorly as compared to men.
Just this year 2023, about 40,000 or more cases have been reported. It occurs mainly in middle-aged and older women. The median age at the time of breast cancer diagnosis is 62, which means that half of the women who developed breast cancer are 62 years of age and half of them are below. A very small number of women diagnosed with breast cancer are younger than 45. In 2020, there were 2.3 million women diagnosed with breast cancer and 685,000 deaths globally.
As of the end of 2020, there were 7.8 million women alive who were diagnosed with breast cancer in the past 5 years, making it the world’s most prevalent cancer. In subsequent years, the number of women diagnosed with cancer kept rising, making it a major problem. Research has shown that out of 8 women, about 1 experiences cancer in their lifetime. According to the American Cancer Society, women ages 40 to 44 should have the choice to start annual breast cancer screening with mammograms (x-rays of the breast) if they wish to do so. Those aged 45 to 54 should get mammograms every year, women 55 and older should switch to mammograms every 2 years or can continue yearly screening.
Screening should continue as long as a woman is in good health and is expected to live 10 more years or longer. All women should be familiar with the known benefits, limitations, and potential harms linked to breast cancer screening. Women should also know how their breasts normally look and feel and report any breast changes to a healthcare provider right away.
CANCER DIAGNOSIS ON THE CORPORATE WOMAN
The busy schedules of those in the corporate world give them little or no time at all to take proper care of themselves. Women especially, face this problem more often. Making sure that contracts are signed, sitting in the office for hours, just to make sure that work is done in the right manner, attending to calls, you name it. Some even get so busy that they do away with food, neglect exercises, and even avoid medical checkups.
Sadly, because these women have no time for a proper healthy lifestyle, their health starts to decline. It will interest you to know that about 80% of these women are wives and even mothers, who have to take up the due responsibilities as such. There are some women that see the symptoms, but decide to ignore them, while others do their best to find solutions to it and it saves them a great deal. The question we need to ask is, how does cancer diagnosis affect their work? How does it affect them? How does it affect their family, friends, and anyone close to or around them? Speaking to WXYZ-TV Detroit, Lynn Walkuski, a breast cancer survivor, and a maths, science and social studies teacher at Discovery Middle School shares her story.
“I left the gym and realized that there was a pulling in my right breast. After a week of still feeling the pain, I went to see my primary care doctor, but the response wasn’t okay for me. I decided to go for a second, and even a third opinion and that’s when I was diagnosed after I had done a biopsy.” She said. On March 24th, 2016, it was in August that she finally got confirmed that she had breast cancer.
Was she shocked, yes but that was the reality now and she has to face it squarely. She ran tests and went through a mastectomy, where her breasts were removed. She was then told that she was BRCA 1 gene positive. A BRCA 1 gene is a human tumour suppressor gene and is responsible for repairing DNA.
She went through chemotherapy and got all the cancer treatments she needed. Yes, it was a very difficult time of her life but she felt peace, she felt right, and there was still hope for her, Why, because she had sought treatment at the initial stage, she had been observant of what happened to her body and she survived. One unique and very inspiring thing about her story is that she got all the help and support from friends, her colleagues at work, and her family.
CANCER DIAGNOSIS OF THE BUSINESSWOMAN
Unlike the corporate world, the business or commercial sector can be a headache at times. It involves a lot of tedious activities, pressure everywhere, having to endure the most annoying customers and so many things that can get you so exhausted at the end of the day. In all these things, women are observed to be the majority in every business or trade sector. A visit to Accra Central, a popular business hub in Ghana, West Africa, depicts a picture of women, toiling to make ends meet. Some have to hawk their products on the busy streets, rain or shine. There are others that have shops for business but have no time to rest. There are young girls known as “kayaye” who solely carry goods to and fro with goods of customers to their cars or destinations at a fee. They have no time to rest and they even find it difficult to close their shops or skip work, because they don’t want to lose their customers.
Research has shown that these businesswomen fall sick and die early because they have no time for themselves. They never go for medical screening, so those with cancer get struck by it, leaving them helpless because it was detected very late. It’s disheartening, very unfortunate for that matter, but can we blame them? No! There are some women who have to play the roles of father and mother because they are single mothers, and there are some who are so helpless, and all they’ve got to survive on is what they make from the products they sell, and that money is not even enough to afford medical assistance.
In the world we are in now, the economic system has worsened the situation. The prices of goods have increased so much that, people only think of what to eat and ignore their health, because they are scared of how much they are going to pay to treat their illness, especially, one as crucial as breast cancer. The number of deaths in women keeps rising, making it a major concern.
WHAT THEN SHOULD BE THE SOLUTION?
Research has shown that individuals who get breast cancer are most likely to have their family having a history of that. Maybe, an aunty, grandmother, mother, etc. In such a situation, the family must visit the hospital on a regular basis, and do self-checks in their breast, so that they can prevent it or solve it if detected at an early stage. Regular exercise, eating good food, drinking enough water, and getting enough sleep, just to mention a few, can be of help in curbing breast cancer. Also, publicizing it regularly, and educating people on what it is and its effects can also bring awareness, so as to help put everyone in check.
Hope For Today’s Woman
Research by the University of Oxford indicates that Previous studies have shown that the risk of death after being diagnosed with early invasive breast cancer has decreased over the past few decades. This is the first study to identify the extent of the decreased risk and to analyse whether or not the decrease in risk applied to all patients or only to patients with certain characteristics for example, age, whether the cancer was detected by screening, involvement of lymph nodes, and tumour size and grade. For this reason, there is hope for today’s women that, they can still live again, to go about whatever they have to do. To conclude, breast cancer is real, it can be very tough, depressing, and heartbreaking, especially, with how it’s treatment is. Chemotherapy causes hair loss, body deformities, the pain of taking medication, and all but it is worth it at the end of the day, that’s when it is detected early. There’s still hope for those with breast cancer, the death factor can be prevented, especially, when all the support, care and love is given.
BY: Michelle Addiah-Hamilton
