Breast Cancer And Mastectomy Made Her Rethink Her Life

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.

“Mummy, are you going to die? Do you have cancer? Is it contagious?”

Ms Aisha Jiffry’s two children, then aged 10 and eight, peppered her with these questions after overhearing her phone conversations with medical experts and family members in mid-November 2020.

“I was so shocked. How do you reply to a question like ‘are you going to die’ when I myself wasn’t sure at the time?” says Ms Aisha, 44.

She was 40 when she found out she had Stage 2 triple negative breast cancer in her right breast, despite having no family history of the disease.

Then a manager in a statutory board, she had been looking forward to continuing in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) – which had been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic – and hoping for a third child. It was to be her fifth round of IVF since 2018, after she had suffered five miscarriages.

Ms Aisha, who had undergone breast reduction surgery in 2017 because of back pain, was then due for her yearly mammogram and breast ultrasound as part of her follow-ups. This was postponed from April to October 2020 because of Covid-19, but what was meant to be a routine check at a public hospital turned out to be hours of waiting, retesting and anguish.

When she was asked to see her doctor urgently 10 days later, she knew it was bad news. She cried so much on the taxi ride over that the sympathetic driver handed her tissues and asked: “Do you have Covid-19?”

She was told that surgery had to be done within the following two weeks, around her 41st birthday in early December.

“It was the worst birthday. I didn’t want to celebrate,” she says, although she was touched when her children made her a birthday cake out of fishballs and carrots.

She sought a second opinion from private doctors, and underwent a mastectomy and reconstruction in late December that year, devastated that she had to put IVF on hold for two more years because of the surgery.

While she had earlier comforted her children during dinner conversations and told them, “don’t worry, mummy will be alive” – their school counsellor also stepped in to support them – Ms Aisha contemplated her mortality before her major surgery.

She found herself writing e-mails to each of them about how she loved them – “as though that was my very last e-mail to them, in case I didn’t wake up”.

Her daughter, Alyssa Mohamed Iqbal, now 14, and her son, Aqeel Mohamed Iqbal, now 12, visited their mother the day after her surgery and played hide and seek in her single-bedder room.

“It’s good that they saw I could smile and laugh,” she says.

She was relieved to find that her condition was less severe than initially diagnosed – instead of Stage 2 cancer, she had Ductal carcinoma in situ, a non-invasive breast cancer that was at Stage 0 – although some cancerous lymph nodes were taken out and her cancer was still considered aggressive.

She considers this, and the fact that she did not need chemotherapy, a miracle.

But while Ms Aisha maintained her bubbly demeanour on the outside, she hit a new low during her recovery when her reconstructed breast turned blue from a dye used in the surgery. Her blues lasted about three months, but she fell into a funk again later in 2021 when she could not even raise her right hand to brush her teeth because of lymphedema, or tissue swelling.

On the one hand, she joked with her doctor about looking like the blue-coloured cartoon character Smurfette, but on the other hand, a desperate call to the Breast Cancer Foundation’s (BCF) hotline had her crying non-stop to the counsellor.

The foundation’s activities, such as yoga and support groups – conducted online because of the pandemic – helped her regain her self-esteem.

She has paid it forward by becoming a BCF befriender and sharing her cancer story at events. Together with four other Malay-Muslim breast cancer warriors, she has formed a Muslim support group at BCF and also gives talks on the subject at mosques.

Never mind that she has had to fend off remarks like “you’re brave to talk about your breasts” and “did your husband and in-laws approve of you talking about this?”.

Ms Aisha says she is trying, one woman at a time, to change perceptions about breast cancer screening, which is much lower among Malay women than those of other races, according to the National Population Health Survey released in 2022.

“Of course, it’s not a ‘nice’ thing to talk about boobs when you wear a hijab, but I think that what I’m doing is a good thing because there is an avenue for (women) to reach out. If not, they will likely be lost if cancer happens,” she says.

Through the ups and downs of her cancer journey, she has held dear to her heart an encouraging remark her plastic surgeon, Dr Matthew Yeo, made the day after her surgery. He said: “You are strong. Never let disease defeat us.”

Cancer has brought her family closer as she now checks on her kids regularly and they exercise together, she says.

Her husband, civil servant Mohamed Iqbal, 45, who has been her pillar of strength throughout, has started a new monthly dating ritual with her. Her relationship with her mother has improved as well.

Ms Aisha also left her job in 2022 and started teaching in various volunteer positions during her recovery.

Now an adjunct lecturer for several institutions, she completed a master’s degree in special and inclusive education from the University of Newcastle in August. Next, she has set her sights on a doctorate of education degree.

“Having cancer was really a blessing in disguise,” she says. “After that phase, you can still live a normal life and, because of that scare, you will definitely change your life for the better.”

This article was originally published on The Straits Times.