One For The Girls

Cancer doesn’t discriminate, as Sam Westend found out. At 30 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and life as she knew it was about to change. She shares her cancer journey

- Sharon Stephenson

Sam Westend loved her boobs. The 30-year-old was proud of her Double D cups, how they looked in a fitted dress, the way she had no trouble filling a sexy bra or bikini. But in February 2017, Sam discovered her beloved breasts were trying to kill her.

“I was diagnosed with a highly aggressive form of breast cancer,” says the Wellington kitchen designer. “Even worse, I tested positive for the breast cancer gene mutation, or BRCA as it’s known, which puts women at a greater risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.”

The BRCA gene gained publicity in 2013 when actress Angelina Jolie discovered that she carried it and underwent a double mastectomy to prevent herself from developing cancer. Experts now believe if more women were tested for BRCA it could help prevent cancer occurring in healthy women (see sidebar).

For Sam it started in January 2017 with a lump in her right breast. “It didn’t really bother me because I thought, ‘I’m only 29 and I’m healthy, I can’t get cancer!”

A few months later, when the lump became too big to ignore, Sam had it checked by her GP who booked her in to have it biopsied. Results usually take six weeks but a week later Sam was told she had cancer.

“They don’t sugar-coat it – the surgeon bluntly said, ‘You have breast cancer.’”

Although in shock, Sam says her sense of humour got her through. “They hand you a welcome pack to the worst club in the world,” she jokes of the stacks of leaflets and information sheets about what to expect from chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and the possible side-effects.