Kiwi mum's courage - ‘MY BOOBS ARE TICKING TIMEBOMBS!'

New mother Samantha won’t let cancer control her life

- Kelly Bertrand

My boobs could kill me.” That’s the first thing Samantha Littlefield thinks as she looks down at her breasts – and very soon, the 30-year-old plans to say goodbye to the “ticking timebombs” forever.

“It’s a strange feeling,” says the Auckland new mum, who only found out she carries the BRCA2 gene mutation, which gives her an 80% chance of developing cancer, in March and gave birth to her son Isaac 10 weeks ago. “These things that make me feel like a woman, that breastfed my baby, they could ultimately kill me. So yeah, they have to go!”

Samantha and her brother Jason discovered they inherited the gene mutation after their mother Gillian’s second battle with breast cancer. BRCA1 and BRCA2 are genes we all have, producing tumour suppressant proteins, however, the mutation means damaged genes aren’t repaired and it can lead to cancer.

Samantha remembers her mum’s first breast cancer diagnosis in 2004, when she was only 13. “It was so difficult on the whole family,” she recalls. “My dad had to work a lot of overtime to support us and Mum was going through hell with her treatments. I was doing a lot to help look after Jason, who was just six. I had to grow up pretty quickly.”