00:00This October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
00:04Every year, 2.3 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer, and 670,000 died around
00:10the world.
00:12Every 14 seconds, somewhere on the planet, a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer.
00:17Well, those latest figures come from 2022, the year that a young France 24 journalist
00:22found out that she had breast cancer herself.
00:25Her name is Aurore-Chloé Dupuy, and she joins me on the set now to tell us a bit more about
00:29her own story.
00:30Aurore, hello.
00:31Hi, Jeannie.
00:32First of all, thank you so much for sharing this with us.
00:34I mean, it's such a deeply personal story for you, and we really appreciate your insight,
00:37especially this month.
00:39Let's start with your diagnosis.
00:40What do you remember exactly about that day?
00:43When the oncologist tells you the news, the only word that keeps ringing in your head
00:47is the word cancer.
00:48You don't hear anything else.
00:50She goes on about the type of cancer that you have, the operation, the treatments that
00:55you can get.
00:56I didn't hear any of that.
00:57I was just squeezing my husband's hand, and the only thought that popped into my head
01:01was, is this going to kill me?
01:04And the only thing I could think about was my children, because they were three and five
01:08years old at the time.
01:09Sorry.
01:10They were very young, and I didn't understand why I had cancer, because I was young.
01:16I was 37, and I didn't drink, didn't smoke.
01:20I was healthy.
01:21I used to ride my bike every day.
01:23I had no family history.
01:27Two years ago, I felt this really uncomfortable pain in my right breast, and it was almost
01:32like a sharp electric shock, and it wouldn't go away.
01:35I got it checked, and the gynecologist told me that there was nothing there in the right
01:39breast.
01:40However, on the left side, there was something really tiny that we needed to monitor, but
01:44there was nothing to worry about, because I had no family history, and considering my
01:49age, there was nothing to worry about.
01:51I came back a month later to get it checked, and the lump had grown from almost nothing
01:56to four centimeters in one month, and that's when my life just turned upside down.
02:02Yeah.
02:03I mean, for so many people, and we just can't even imagine what that's like, and like you
02:07said, you did have two small children at the time, three and five years old.
02:11How did you go about coping as a family?
02:15It was tough.
02:16At first, I didn't want to say anything to my kids, because they were so young.
02:20They had never been confronted to death.
02:23They didn't know what cancer was, and I didn't really know how to go about it.
02:27We were very lucky, because we were put in touch with a psychiatrist who specializes
02:31in cancer, and she told us that we have to be transparent with young kids.
02:36We have to tell them the truth with simple words, because obviously, they're too young
02:40to understand fully, but what we told them was, mommy's very ill, and she's going to
02:45be very ill for a long time, so I'm not going to be able to play with you.
02:49I'm not going to be able to get out of bed sometimes.
02:52I will feel nauseous, but I'm in good hands, and doctors are here to help me, so I'll be
02:57in hospital quite a lot, but they're there to help me.
03:02That was really tough.
03:04I ended up in intensive care twice because of COVID and the flu, because my immune system
03:10was so low because of chemotherapy.
03:13That was really hard, because it was right during the Christmas season, so I missed my
03:17daughter's Christmas party, the first Christmas show that she was doing at school.
03:22I had a panic attack.
03:25My face just got paralyzed, and I couldn't talk.
03:28My mom thought I was having a heart attack.
03:31Because of the fear of passing that on to my children, I have a daughter, and I'm always
03:37worried that she might get the same thing as me later on, even though I don't have the gene.
03:42I didn't finish all my treatments, unfortunately, because I didn't have enough white blood counts
03:47so I only had 14 rounds of chemo instead of 16, so I always wonder, I wish that I could
03:55have finished my treatment.
03:57Your story, Aurora, unfortunately, isn't a unique one.
04:00Something that was news to me was how much breast cancer affects young women, and you've
04:05been talking to a lot of young women around the world for us.
04:07Absolutely.
04:08A lot of them have told me that they've either been misdiagnosed or diagnosed too late.
04:14For cancer in young patients, it's very, very important that you get treated early.
04:19So I wanted to give a voice to the survivors, and I want you to listen to their stories.
04:25In one week, over the course of the exams, I went from two lumps in the breast to three
04:29to six.
04:30It was really fast.
04:33I was 33, and I was 10 and a half weeks pregnant.
04:38I did actually have one doctor who basically shamed me for deciding to keep my baby.
04:47I've just finished treatment for a second breast cancer.
04:51There was a huge spread of cells that required a heavy treatment, both chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
04:57He's getting mammograms done earlier, breast care, self-exams done.
05:01I mean, admittedly, I wasn't as proactive on that front as I could have been.
05:07If I had been 50 or 60 years old, would they not have done a biopsy right away?
05:12That would have spared me going through chemo, radiation, and all that that entails, which
05:16is really hard to live through.
05:17Yeah, it's so interesting to hear those women saying, you know, I had no idea.
05:22And I think the lack of knowledge is a real problem for women, young and old.
05:25Absolutely.
05:26When I was diagnosed, I knew nothing about breast cancer.
05:29I mean, call me naive, but I was simply too young in my head to get cancer.
05:34There are different types of breast cancer.
05:36Most people don't know about this.
05:37There's the cancers that feed off hormones, so like oestrogen and progesterone.
05:41Some cancers feed off both, others spread a protein called HER2.
05:48And these are the most common types of breast cancers.
05:52The type of cancer that I got is called triple negative, which means it has none of the features
05:58that we've just discussed.
06:00It has no oestrogen or progesterone receptors, and it doesn't produce the HER2 protein, which
06:07means that all the targeted treatments that are already existing now cannot apply to me
06:13because they simply just wouldn't work.
06:15So what I did get was chemotherapy, immunotherapy.
06:18This is the new thing now, and it's my hope that it does work because it's an aggressive
06:24type of cancer and it spreads faster than any type of cancer.
06:29It largely targets young women, women of color as well.
06:33My grandmother's from Madagascar.
06:35And also women who might have the BRCA genes, which is not my case.
06:41So yeah, the good news is though, even if you have TNBC, triple negative breast cancer,
06:47if it gets caught early, you can survive.
06:49Which again, which is why spreading awareness is so important, particularly not just during
06:52this month of breast cancer awareness, but all the time.
06:56Absolutely.
06:57And that's why you need to know your breasts.
07:00You need to check yourself in the mirror every day, in the shower, when you're lying down
07:03in your bed, check your breasts, try and learn all the symptoms.
07:06There's so many resources out there on the internet where you can get informed and learn
07:11about the symptoms that you could get.
07:13Extreme fatigue, nipple discharge, sensitive breasts.
07:18But be careful as well, because I had none of these symptoms when I was diagnosed.
07:22I couldn't feel any lumps, nothing at all.
07:26So you need to be really careful because young women often have dense breast tissue
07:30and they have a lot of muscle, so you can't necessarily palpate, you can't feel sometimes
07:35the lump.
07:36So you have to really advocate for yourselves.
07:38And please, please, please ask your doctors for a mammography or an ultrasound.
07:44If you have any doubt, ask for a second opinion.
07:46And Aurora, I mean, you've been through this, you're going through it still yourself.
07:50Do you have tips for those who might be watching us who are just starting their fight?
07:56Get yourself informed, sign up to your local groups in your community.
08:03There's a lot of great groups on Facebook and other social media.
08:08You can get free webinars, you can seek help with the ones that you love.
08:14And always keep your eyes on the prize.
08:18What I say is, the prize is that you have to live and don't give up.
08:23Because if you start, it's so hard because you have all these negative thoughts and you
08:27think, you know, I might die from this.
08:30But it's very important that you stay strong and you have to live, especially if you have
08:35young children.
08:38And for me, what saved me was dark humour, sense of humour.
08:43You know, you become dreadful.
08:45When you go through chemo, you lose your hair, you lose your eyebrows, you lose everything.
08:48The only thing that I didn't lose was my leg hairs, which made me laugh.
08:54So you have to kind of see the positive in what you're going through, because otherwise
08:58you, I would have gone mental.
09:01I did not believe the doctors when they told me that I had cancer.
09:04And I asked for three different biopsies.
09:07It was, yeah, nerve wracking.
09:09And it's important to have a network of people that are there for you.
09:16And to tap into resources, there's a website as well that women can check out.
09:20Is it just breastcancerawareness.org, I believe?
09:22Yes, absolutely.
09:23And I believe that we have, we might have a screen grab of that and you can check how
09:27you can self-examinate yourself.
09:30And there are great, great tips on there where you can, you can seek some more information.
09:33Thank you so much.
09:34Thank you so much for coming in to talk to us and for sharing your story for us.
09:37We really do appreciate it.
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