This New Mum Was Diagnosed With Breast Cancer At 30

Early onset breast cancer – breast cancer occurring in women under the age of 45 – is on the rise. In Singapore, one out of six women diagnosed with breast cancer is under the age of 45. Women aged 20 to 39 are advised to do monthly breast self-examinations, while women between the ages of 40 and 49 are recommended to have yearly mammograms. If you notice a new lump in your breast, regardless of whether you are pregnant or nursing, get it checked by a specialist as soon as possible.

Ms Dawn Chua was 14 in 2006 when she first heard about breast cancer. Her mother, Mrs Mabel Chua, then 41, had just been diagnosed with Stage 2 of the disease.

"I remember crying because back then, technology wasn’t so advanced and there were a lot of unknowns. We wondered, would she be able to survive this?”

Her mother pulled through after undergoing chemotherapy and a mastectomy.

Cancer struck her family again in 2017, when her father succumbed to late stage oesophageal cancer at age 55.

Five years later, in 2022, the only child and new mother found herself facing a diagnosis of Stage 2 triple negative breast cancer. She had just turned 30.

Barely a year before that, in 2021, she had given birth to her first child, Matthias, three years after tying the knot with her university sweetheart. After trying unsuccessfully for four months to breastfeed, the human resources professional noticed a lump in her right breast, which she thought might be a clogged duct linked to her nursing efforts.

Because of her family history of breast cancer, she had been diligently going for breast ultrasounds yearly. However, the Covid-19 pandemic, pregnancy and settling into motherhood meant she had no regular check-ups since 2019.

“It was like, ‘Not again,’” she recalls about the diagnosis. “The word ‘cancer’ brought back a lot of not-so-good memories,” recalls the now-32-year-old.

The couple broke down in the clinic of her private breast surgeon.

“The first thing I asked was: ‘Why me?’ I was 30 years old, in the prime of life. Would I be able to fulfill my dreams of having another kid and moving up in my career? Would I even be able to see my son grow up?”

After her initial fear and panic, she did her research and realised how treatable her cancer was, as it had been detected at an early stage. She found support in a Telegram group formed by the Breast Cancer Foundation, where cancer warriors share their stories.

She also drew solace and motivation from her mother’s cancer journey. While her mum took a while to accept her daughter’s diagnosis, she kept up a strong front, assuring her daughter that medical advances were in her favour.

An only child, Ms Chua says her parents are more like her friends than figures of authority. Battling cancer helped her understand what her mother had overcome.

Ms Chua says: “Because I saw how she went from being very weak after the treatment to recovering from cancer, it gave me the motivation and confidence that I could fight this.”

She underwent about four months of chemotherapy and started immunotherapy – a year-long treatment to help the immune system fight cancer. She had a double mastectomy and reconstruction in October 2022, as genetic testing revealed she had the BRCA1 gene, which increases the risk of breast and ovarian cancers.

Meanwhile, her in-laws, aunt and mother, who was working part-time as a sales promoter, took turns to care for her son during the day, while her husband took over at night, as she was fatigued from her treatments.

She says her husband was her support “pillar”, fetching her to and from medical appointments and working beside her on his laptop as she underwent chemotherapy.

“It was a good reminder that we shouldn’t neglect health and family, no matter how busy we are,” she says.

Despite wanting more children, Ms Chua opted not to freeze her eggs as the fertility preservation process would have delayed her cancer treatment by a few weeks. She struggled with the possibility that she might not be able to conceive again. But given the aggressive nature of the disease, she decided her health came first.

So imagine her delight when she got her period, a sign of fertility, about four months after she stopped chemotherapy in September 2022. A year later, her oncologist gave her the green light to try for baby No. 2.

She describes her daughter Natalie’s birth in August 2024 as “a miracle”.

“It was very surreal seeing her for the first time. I thought: ‘I’m a mother again,’” she says.

While mothers-to-be and new mothers tend to focus all their energies on the baby, she made it a point to prioritise her own well-being too, because “if I don’t take care of myself well, then how am I going to take care of my children?”, she says.

Ms Chua has since resumed the exercises she loves, such as running and yoga, and quit her job in April 2023 to figure out her next steps. She took on a part-time human resources role a month later at a utilities company, which turned into a full-time role in early 2024.

She advises young mothers to do regular breast examinations and not to dismiss lumps, especially when breastfeeding.

“Cancer is not as scary as a lot of people perceive it to be,” she says. “Accept it first, and slowly discuss the options. There are still people who eventually lose the battle, unfortunately, but with early detection, it is definitely treatable.”

Her cancer journey has also made her more empathetic towards others. When she lost her hair and had to wear a cap, some people came up to her and told her to be strong.

“I was quite thankful for that. So, from then on, whenever I see people who are experiencing the same thing, I will reach out and say: ‘I’ve been through this and I know it’s tough right now. You might not imagine yourself walking out of this, but you will.’”

This article was originally published on The Straits Times.