Forum Discussion
What the heck is going on with this BC thing????????
Ok, so I know the figures are 1 in 8 or 1 in 7 depending on which article you read but honestly. When I was diagnosed I knew one of my friends sister had had breast cancer and my family history 3 generations ago. That was it.
I would see the bookings come through at work averaging one or two breast surgeries a week and sometimes there would be a few weeks with none at all.
Now. WOW! 4 - 6 a week with the majority being 45-55yrs and a definite rise in under 40's.
One of my friends mother in law diagnosed last year and now her mother last week. my daughters friends mother, a close work collegue a couple of months ago, a collegues sister a week after that, a collegues daughter around the same time. One of the senior medical consultants. A client drops a horse off to me and has to run or she'll be late for radiation!
Bugger me. I get in to work today and ask where so and so is. "Oh, haven't you heard" She's been diagnosed last week and is off for bilat mx and ax clearance. All of these people I know in my little circle diagnosed within the last 12 months.
Seriously what the heck is going on?
I would see the bookings come through at work averaging one or two breast surgeries a week and sometimes there would be a few weeks with none at all.
Now. WOW! 4 - 6 a week with the majority being 45-55yrs and a definite rise in under 40's.
One of my friends mother in law diagnosed last year and now her mother last week. my daughters friends mother, a close work collegue a couple of months ago, a collegues sister a week after that, a collegues daughter around the same time. One of the senior medical consultants. A client drops a horse off to me and has to run or she'll be late for radiation!
Bugger me. I get in to work today and ask where so and so is. "Oh, haven't you heard" She's been diagnosed last week and is off for bilat mx and ax clearance. All of these people I know in my little circle diagnosed within the last 12 months.
Seriously what the heck is going on?
29 Replies
- @kmakm would love to! Have sent you a PM :)
- @Caz1 Sorry! Hey would you like to meet up one day for a cuppa and a chat? One freak show to another?!
- Was it the newspaper they used to wrap the fish and chips in?
- I grew up in Scotland - pea soup fogs, reeking coal chimneys everywhere, smoking in cinemas (I can still see the projection beam cutting through the smoke swirl). The Scottish diet (meat, potatoes, sugar and alcohol) scarcely helped. Of course no-one spoke of cancer out loud, so I have no recollection of what the stats were. None in my families to my knowledge. Who can tell?
- Did we have wheelie bins in 1976?
We eat more processed food than ever before, we're surrounded by things in the environment that are probably not too good for us, many more women drink alcohol in greater quantities than in previous generations... But why did you and I get it? May be genetic or may be that we were in the wrong place at the wrong time... - An excerpt from an interesting podcast from a researcher in Utah indicates:
.....the increase (in young women diagnosed with bc) was statistically large but not numerically large. And this is a very important difference to me and my listeners. The rate of advanced breast cancer in young women almost doubled, which sounds like a huge increase. But in absolute numbers, it went from 1.53 per 100,000 women per year in 1976 to 2.9 per 100,000 women per year. An absolute increase of a little over 1 per 100,000 women per year over the 36-year interval.
She also pointed our that obesity is a cancer risk and the incidence of obesity in young women has increased significantly over the same period.
The latter is certainly about what we are putting in our bodies, but not necessarily what we think of as chemical or environmental factors. - @kmakm well there you go, I didn’t know that slightly depressing stat.... think that makes me feel worse! ;)
- I'm the same @Caz1. I was 51 when I was going through treatment. 53 now and I still haven't met anyone outside this forum and my support group who's been recently diagnosed. The only possible exception being the sister of a friend who I met at her mother's funeral. The average age of diagnosis in Australia is 62 I think, so it's not surprising. Give it another 10 years and I reckon we'll see more in our real lives.
@kezmusc Last week I went to a BC conference and an eminent speaker from Boston mentioned in passing that more younger women are being diagnosed, that they don't really know why but they're fairly sure it's something environmental, ie what we're putting into our bodies, how and where we're living. Outside influences, that kind of thing. There's so much to learn still. - Eeeeeww mind boggles @kezmusc :s
- He @Caz1 I think they're all hanging out with me :)
I was 45 when I did rads. The only other person my age was a man having rads for prostate cancer...jeesus they cop a rough dea with that eeewww. He was there the same time as me and spent most of his time whinging about Tamoxifen side effects....I understand how he felt now!
