“A screening saved my life”
After a routine breast screening, 48-year-old Donna Heydon was told she had early-stage breast cancer
Donna Heydon wasn’t planning on getting a breast screen – after all, she was only 48 and she didn’t have any symptoms. But when her work advertised the Breastscreen Australia program, she figured, why not?
“I had no symptoms or lumps and bumps, but I was having a pap smear done so I thought, ‘Oh well, this is my grease and oil change, I may as well get it all done,’” she recalls.
A few weeks later she received a phone call asking her to attend further testing, but she didn’t think too much of it.
“I didn’t think there was any reason other than they wanted to double check things,” she says. “But then after the ultrasound, they sat me down and said, ‘You’ve got breast cancer.’ And I just thought, ‘What?’”
She was utterly shocked, especially as she had almost missed her screening altogether due to an urgent work call. Just seven days later she underwent mastectomy surgery on her right breast.
“I was very lucky. It was caught early, before it spread, and no further treatment was required,” she says. “I cannot express how lucky I was to have early intervention that ultimately saved my life.”
“I called my husband, and said, ‘I think I’ve just been told I’ve got breast cancer.’”
Donna, now 51, urges all asymptomatic women over 50 to get regular breast screening.
“Just get screened so you’ve got a baseline there to be compared to as you get older to see if there are any changes,” she says. “It’s free and only takes 20 minutes.”