Don’t neglect your own health, breast cancer survivor warns
DR ELORINE Turner-Pryce, the founder and general mission director of Eden Joy Whole Foods and a decade-long breast cancer survivor, is urging other women not to be so busy seeing to the needs of others that they neglect themselves – until they get a cancer diagnosis.
Turner-Pryce, who first began showing signs of breast cancer in 2014, gave the sobering advice while giving her personal testimony on Sunday, during an online cancer seminar hosted by the Jamaica Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in recognition of World Cancer Day on February 4. The seminar was held under the theme ‘I will go: Embracing a healthy lifestyle now’.
“When I found the lump in my breast in 2014, and my husband was away [at the time], I didn’t pay it any mind for months. It was slow growing, and I thought, ‘Well, I’m just getting fat.’ I was teaching everybody to be healthy, I was going everywhere, helping people to understand what it means to have a holistic approach to your healing, especially your faith in God and your nutrition,” Turner-Pryce told the meeting.
“After I found my lump, we were praying constantly and trying to follow God’s leading. When I was diagnosed, if you were to grade my stress level, taking care of everybody and forgetting about Elorine, I would give it a nine out of 10,” Turner-Pryce admitted. “I was just moving as if there was no tomorrow, and I paid very little attention to myself.”
Turner-Pryce, who has been operating Eden Joy Whole Foods since 1987, emphasised the need for women to make time for their
own well-being.
“You are working yourself and trying to reach so many people and trying to get so much to so many people, but what tends to happen is that we tend to forget how much we need to take care of ourselves, especially women. We are so involved in so many things that we forget what we need to be doing to ourselves, taking the fresh air, taking the sunlight, taking the rest, being temperate, and we are piling up the stress on ourselves, forgetting or taking for granted what the effects of these things can be,” Turner-Pryce noted.
POTENTIAL SIGNS
Her testimony comes one year after the Pan-American Health Organisation estimated that there will be 30 million new cancer cases globally by 2040, with the largest increases expected to happen in lowand middle-income countries. The organisation also estimated that of that number, 6.23 million people are expected to be diagnosed with the disease in the Americas.
In Jamaica, breast cancer has been identified as the leading cause of cancer-related death in women, with that cancer accounting for 34.1 per cent of new cancer cases among women in 2020.
For men, prostate cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death, accounting for 42.8 per cent of new male cancer cases that year.
Preventable risk factors for cancer include tobacco and alcohol use, an unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, and being overweight or obese. Other factors include a family history of cancer, hormonal changes, and exposure to radiation.
Specific to breast cancer, a lump in or near the breast is usually cited as an early sign of the disease. Other potential signs include unnatural warmth in the breast, an unusual discharge, constant unnatural soreness or pain, or any other changes in the breast that raise concern.
Men may also suffer breast cancer, although that specific cancer is rarer in males than in females, representing one per cent of all cancer diagnoses. Even so, men are advised to consult their doctors if they experience any unusual changes in their breasts, to include lumps, dimpling of the skin or changes in the nipple.
In the meantime, Dr Adan Sanchez, medical practitioner and researcher at the United Statesbased Uchee Pines Institute, told Sunday’s meeting that care should be taken with one’s diet in seeking to prevent the formation of cancer, including the use of sugar and milk.
“At this point, many soft drinks and commercial fruit juices utilise high fructose corn syrup, which is a highly processed sweetener. As for fruits, we have to eat fruits, and there is no problem with eating fruits and [dealing with] cancer,” said Sanchez.
“Specifically for milk as related to prostate cancer and breast cancer, there is a protein called casein, and it can promote cancer cell growth. That is why we don’t recommend drinking milk, for any kind of cancer. I will say just be careful with it, with cow’s milk, as you will find many other options, like almond milk and soy milk,” Sanchez added.