‘BREASTFEEDING SAVED ME’
When breastfeeding mum Jessica
Marechal began experiencing pain in her left breast, she initially thought it was a blocked milk duct or mastitis.
“I did the massage and heat packs, and warm showers. Then probably about a week later, I noticed a lump,” the mother of two tells New Idea.
Jessica’s doctor initially thought it was a cyst. But four days after it was drained, the cyst was back.
“It was about four by five centimetres,” says Jessica, whose son Hendrix was only 8 months old at the time.
Tests confirmed it was a non-cancerous cyst and it was drained for a second time. But incredibly, within days the cyst was back for a third time.
“The surgeon thought that was really unusual,” says the mum of Molly, now 7, and Hendrix, now 3.
“This time they did a biopsy around the sides of the cyst. It turned out to be surrounded by cancer cells.”
Jessica, then 33, had triple negative breast cancer.
“It’s the most aggressive, least common type of cancer,” she tells us.
Two weeks after she was diagnosed, Jessica started a gruelling course of treatment.
“I had 15 lots of chemotherapy. The oncologist wanted to treat it aggressively to give me the best chance of survival,” she explains.
Jessica, from Nairne, SA, also had a lumpectomy, followed by 30 sessions of radiotherapy. Today, she is 36 and cancer-free.
Jessica is proudly participating in the Mother’s Day Classic to help raise awareness of breast cancer in young women and breastfeeding mums.
“If you’re not sure, get it checked,” she says.