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Penelope was diagnosed with HER2-Positive breast cancer after a regular mammogram.
It was only the second mammogram she’d been for, but something untoward was identified and a biopsy revealed that she had breast cancer. “That mammogram saved my life,” she says.
Penelope had a full mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation treatment and is currently being treated with Herceptin and tamoxifen.
The 49-year-old’s treatment was complicated by other health issues and she frequently collapsed due to anaemia exhaustion.
Greer Davis knows a thing or two about cancer. Her Mum has had breast cancer. Her Dad died of a brain tumour in 2009. And at the age of only 25, Greer herself was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The Auckland woman was shell-shocked to discover in 2012 that she had an aggressive form of breast cancer at such a young age.
“I freaked out. You just get this knot of fear in your stomach because it’s all so unknown and when they start talking about mastectomies it’s all quite scary,” she says of her diagnosis.
She had sought medical help when she discovered a lump in her breast after several months of tenderness.
Breast cancer has dealt Angela Litterick-Biggs a death sentence. But the Wellington woman refuses to accept defeat and lives her life with an energy and passion that’s truly extraordinary.
It was Angela Litterick-Biggs’ worst birthday ever. On the day she turned 41, only a couple of years after her mother died of cancer, Angela was told she had breast cancer.
A week later she was told that the cancer was incurable. It had spread from her breast to her spine. Doctors could not cure the cancer. They could only try to control it.
Breast cancer has dealt Angela Litterick-Biggs a death sentence. But the Wellington woman refuses to accept defeat and lives her life with an energy and passion that’s truly extraordinary.
It was Angela Litterick-Biggs’ worst birthday ever. On the day she turned 41, only a couple of years after her mother died of cancer, Angela was told she had breast cancer.
A week later she was told that the cancer was incurable. It had spread from her breast to her spine. Doctors could not cure the cancer. They could only try to control it.
'Show your Heart' was a fundraising campaign BCAC held in 2012. While this campaign is no longer running you can still contribute to BCAC via our donation page. We are very grateful for all donations we receive.
Show your heart for women living with breast cancer by donating to BCAC to help us make life better for New Zealanders with breast cancer and their families.
You can make a contribution by donating to BCAC directly here.
Find out more about the breast cancer survivors supporting BCAC:
Around 150 women under the age of 40 will be diagnosed with breast cancer in New Zealand each year and these women face many concerns that their older counterparts do not have to confront.
BCAC committee member Greer Davis understands these issues all too well. She is one of the 150 - she was diagnosed with breast cancer last year at the age of only 25.
She recently attended the annual conference for young women affected by breast cancer C4YW to hear a range of presenters discuss the issues and concerns that are specific to young women with breast cancer. This year’s conference was held in Seattle, in the USA and was co-hosted by Living Beyond Breast Cancer (www.lbbc.com) and Young Survival Coalition (www.youngsurvival.org).
Researchers have for the first time calculated by how much radiation therapy for breast cancer increases the risk of heart disease and the findings can now be used by doctors to help treat patients more appropriately.
The research, by scientists at the University of Oxford and in Scandinavia and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, looked at more than 2,000 women treated with radiation therapy in Denmark and Sweden.
They found that the risk of radiation-related heart disease was real, but that for most women it was small.
Getting through breast cancer treatment can unleash a whole new set of emotions for many women.
You may be elated at finishing treatment, apprehensive about the lack of contact with medical professionals, scared about a recurrence of the cancer, or fearless about what the future holds.
UK scientists have discovered a number of genes which are responsible for developing resistance to a targeted medicine used in the treatment of HER2-Positive breast cancer.
The team at the Institute of Cancer Research in London examined a number of genes that were overactive in women with HER2 Positive breast cancer who had developed a resistance to the drug Lapatinib (Tykerb).
Around 20 per cent of breast cancers are HER2 Positive and the targeted medicines Herceptin and Tykerb are most commonly used to treat women with this type of cancer. However, in some women a drug may stop being effective after being used for a certain period of time.
