Teaching assistant Maria Trattos Meacham, 43, was diagnosed with breast cancer aged 38. She says, “My mum, Eraclia, was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2017, when a routine mammogram found a lump. We’d already lost my nan and two of my aunties to breast cancer, and we immediately thought the worst. It felt like a death sentence.
“After Mum was diagnosed, she asked to be tested for the
‘breast cancer’ gene, BRCA2. Once she was found to carry that, it meant I was eligible for early screening and gene testing myself. That was why in July 2018 – just eight months after Mum had been diagnosed – I went for a mammogram, aged 38.
SCARY TIME
“Before I’d even had the mammogram, the doctor felt a mass in my breast. He said I was ‘lucky’ I’d gone in. The mammogram, followed by a scan and a biopsy, confirmed it was cancer. It was a scary time. Although my nan had been in her seventies when she’d died, my two aunties had been just 37 and 38 – the age I was at diagnosis – when they’d passed away.
“Initially, I had a lumpectomy alongside IVF, as I was warned treatment would affect my fertility, followed by chemotherapy. Then, when the results of the gene test came back positive, I had a double mastectomy.
Once I knew I carried the gene, I just wanted my breasts gone, because we’d lost so many people in the family.
“By the summer of 2019, I’d
