Melanie Hewson
The mother of seven will undergo preventative surgery.
“As a child, I grew up with my mother telling me stories of all the women relatives in our family who had died of breast or ovarian cancer, and it was just an expected norm,” says 42-year-old Melanie Hewson. “Mum got breast cancer in 2005. She won over her breast cancer only to get ovarian cancer 10 years later. Then, inally, someone suggested she get tested for the BRCA gene. Sure enough, she was carrying the BRCA1 gene.”
Melanie decided she would also be tested for the mutation that had plagued her family for generations. “In March 2016, at 12 weeks’ pregnant with my seventh child, I was delivered the news I was carrying the BRCA1 gene. It con irmed what I’d suspected for years.”
However, Melanie says she understands it’s a personal choice not everyone wants to go through. “For me, knowledge is power. I wanted to be in control. I didn’t want to accept that one day I’d have cancer,” she explains. “One of my sisters has been tested and hasn’t got the mutation, but my other sister and brother haven’t been tested.”
Melanie plans to have preventative surgery later this year. “As a nurse, I know preventative surgery is the best option. I am booked in to have my ovaries removed at the end of the year and then a double mastectomy once I’m inished breastfeeding. I’ve been breastfeeding on and o for 20 years. My breasts have done what they were meant to and
I’m ine to see them go if it means I can see my kids grow up,” she says. “I don’t need to take a pair of breasts to the grave with me.”
“For me, knowledge is power. I wanted to be in control. I didn’t want to accept that one day I’d have cancer.”