Katie Information sports a couple of a lot more scars compared to a lot of 35-year-olds.
There’s a faint line tucked in her left armpit, leftover from a sentinel node biopsy. There’s a mark above her collarbone from a chemotherapy port and one more scar above her left breast — the residual of a lumpectomy.
Post doesn’t hide her scars; she’s proud of them. They’re signs of her yearlong battle along with breast cancer. Due to the fact that being diagnosed in the spring of 2013, she’s undergone surgery, harsh bouts of chemotherapy and radiation and has actually been in remission for the past year-and-a-half.
She’s energetic member of the regional breast cancer community — she’s the state’s leader for the Young Survival Coalition, which is a national network for young women that have actually breast cancer, a member of the Malama Ka Pili Paa cancer sustain group in Hilo, a young advocate for the Living Beyond Breast Cancer organization, and likewise is a second-year pharmacy student at the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy.
Most importantly, she said cancer is something that’s changed her — for the better.
“Cancer is section of me now,” she said. “As soon as I look spine at cancer, I don’t consider it as being something bad. I look spine at it being something good. It was inadequate As soon as I went through it … however it was excellent in the sense that, it gained me a much better person, more powerful — and that I am today.”
Post has actually quite little family history of cancer. She was likewise tested for the BRCA cancer gene mutation. She doesn’t carry the mutation. Plus, she was just 32. So the day she initial felt a swelling in her breast while taking a shower, she did just what a lot of young women could do — she ignored it at first.
“As soon as you’re young, it’s something you don’t believe about. It’s among those points you believe you’re immune to,” said Post, that was living in Florida at the time. “You believe it’s never ever heading to you. I never ever believed I’d get hold of it.”
Statistically, young women frequently face delays in diagnosis, according to short article from the Young Survival Coalition. They have actually a lot more dense breast tissue — which makes detecting cancer via mammograms a lot more difficult, and they frequently face a lot more aggressive forms of cancer. however data from the coalition shows breast cancer is the a lot of common cancer in women ages 15 to 39, along with 13,000 brand-new diagnosis each year.
Post is now a staunch supporter of all of women conducting routine breast self-exams. Prior to the lump in her own breast was removed, she encouraged “virtually every woman she knew” to feel the tumor.
And now in remission, she takes points one day at a time. She moved to Hawaii for pharmacy school in 2014, and conducts cancer study at the university. She feels lucky. She doesn’t regret the cancer, she said, due to the fact that it has actually place points in perspective.
“I live each day love it’s heading to be my last,” she said. “Simply due to the fact that I already know now that it could be. I tell every person I like them, and you never ever already know As soon as you’re time is up. It’s certainly changed things.”
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