SUPPORT AND ADVICE
WHY EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE TALKING AB OUT
breast cancer
TV DOCTOR AMIR KHAN HAS A VERY PERSONAL REASON FOR WANTING ALL HIS PATIENTS AND VIEWERS TO BE BREAST C ANCER AWARE. HERE HE EXPLAINS WHY... In October 2015 I got a call from my mum, Abida, while I was at work. She had gone for her routine mammogram and they had found a suspicious looking lesion, they wanted her to come back for an ultrasound-guided biopsy. My immediate reaction was that it was likely to be nothing and they were just being over cautious so I tried to reassure her and went with her to the appointment. At the clinic, she was assigned a breast liaison nurse who translated everything for her – even though Mum can speak perfectly good English, Urdu is her first language. This took away some of her anxiety, but unfortunately the biopsy came back as cancer – a small undifferentiated lump in her right breast. She’d had no symptoms and had felt perfectly well, and so it was a shock for the whole family. Further tests revealed the cancer had not yet spread to her lymph nodes and a mastectomy was suggested. The hospital was brilliant (as was my mum). She had the
154 | FUTUREDREAMS.ORG.UK
LUCKY: Amir’s mum Abida, was diagnosed early with breast cancer
