My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 18 years old. After surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy she is currently a breast cancer survivor. My aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014. After battling cancer for 5 years, she passed away when I was 21 years old.

The major difference between my mother and my auntie was that when my mother was diagnosed, she had stage 1 cancer, and when my auntie was diagnosed she had stage 3 cancer.

My mother is truly the strongest woman that I know and our lives basically continued as normal while she received cancer treatment. It was only after my auntie passed away and after my 3rd year of my medical studies, when I started working with patients, that I truly realised the great importance of early disease detection and treatment.

My family history meant that I would have to go for breast cancer screening early in my life. The good thing was that I am well aware of this, the really bad thing is, however, that there are so many women out there that do not know the importance of early disease detection.

This was when I knew that I had to use my medical knowledge and resources to help educate women on their bodies and various diseases in simple language that they can understand. In doing this, I would be able to increase early disease detection, which will result in early and effective disease treatment and a decrease in the burden of diseases on South Africa’s health system.

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