| 年轻女性乳腺癌发病率上升-1 Fewer Americans are dying of cancer. But the disease is on the increase amoung young adults under 40, like Jennifer Johnson. She was performing a monthly breast self-exam when she discovered a lump . She was 27 years old and five months pregnant when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. "When you're pregnant, you're trying to do everything you can to protect the baby and to stay healthy. So that was the last thing I expected to deal with. I didn't have a family history of breast cancer. I had no idea that young women can get breast cancer. So it was a shock." And, she says, it was risky, because she had to undergo a mastectomy and chemotherapy during her pregnancy. "I really didn't want to. I was begging my doctor to wait until the baby was born, but it was aggressive enough that we needed to get started. Then in the day after my last treatment, my son was born. He was healthy." Johnson is a breast cancer survivor, and so is her friend, Kim Carlos. She was diagnosed with the disease at age 30 while she was planning her son's second birthday party. "When I was diagnosed, the first thing I obviously thought of was my son. He was just turning 2 and I wanted to be here to see him grow up." During their treatment journey, Carlos and Johnson formed a support group with two other friends. They shared their experiences, hopes and fears as they struggled to beat breast cancer. They met once a month at the cafe in Nordstrom's department store. Carlos: That was our place to share with each other our experiences and all the unique things that we were going through that our counterparts who didn't have breast cancer maybe couldn't quite relate to. Johnson: It was just a very comfortable place for us to go and meet, to laugh, to cry and talk about whatever we needed to, often with our spouses, sometimes you don't want to tell them things you're thinking because you don't want to scare them. You want to stay positive for them. Jennifer Johnson says they posses one of their monthly gatherings that they decided to put their experiences in writing, to share them with women everywhere. The result was Nordie's at Noon: The Personal Stories of Four Women Too Young for Breast Cancer . |
