When 37-year-old Shonel Byrant was told she had triple-negative breast cancer, she fell into disbelief.
“It's so hard to put into words… I felt numb, I couldn't think, I couldn't process [it].”
Although, she says the news felt somewhat familiar as her mother died from stomach cancer and her aunty was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer.
“It was in my realm, it was in my life but even still I still wasn't checking my breasts and it just to me now, it sounds so ridiculous.”
In October last year, Shonel was diagnosed with stage 2 triple-negative breast cancer, a rarer and more aggressive form of cancer that accounts for of breast cancers.
Shonel is battling triple negative breast cancer. Source: Enchanted Wedding Photography
This year, Australians will be diagnosed with cancer but experts are concerned this number will explode in upcoming years, along with late diagnoses.
But despite the alarming increase in cancer diagnoses, there have been fewer people presenting to screenings.
reported that between January to June there were 144,982 fewer mammograms, 443,935 fewer cervical screening tests and 144,379 fewer bowel screening tests than in previous years.
Director of Cancer Services at St Vincent’s hospital, Dr Richard Gallagher says this significant drop in people presenting to cancer screenings may even be “life-threatening”.
“I don't want to sensationalise that but we know that delay in diagnosis may result in complications for patients,” he told The Feed.
“We’re suddenly going to have this jump in numbers over the next 12 months of people presenting who need more aggressive treatments, and more aggressive treatments mean that it’s more involved,” he added.
“It means trying to get people through the system faster and we’ve [already] got a capacity problem across the health system.”
For Shonel, hearing that hundreds of thousands fewer people have attended screenings this year makes her feel “sick” to her “stomach”.
Battling breast cancer during the pandemic has been tough for Shonel and her family. Source: Supplied
“Being told that you've got a late-stage cancer would just be hideous.”
“It actually makes me want to cry thinking about it and my heart goes out to these people who are experiencing that at the moment. Hearing what I heard was hard enough and it's still hard.”
Shonel is urging people to prioritise their health and go to the doctor if they suspect something isn’t right.
“There's a movement at the moment called feel it on the 1st and I'm all about it, creating a habit once-a-month to get into a routine of doing it. The more we can drill that into people the more lives we’re going to save.”
Shonel says six women have found breast cancer since she started sharing the movement on her social media page
“I just implore people to go [to cancer screenings] and act fast, don't put it off, it is so important... so important to get onto these things fast,” she said.
COVID-19 hit when Shonel had only three sessions of chemotherapy left --- just after she was told her treatments were working.
“When COVID hit it threw a huge spanner in the works, obviously it was a new pandemic [so] everyone was freaking out and the fear just came flooding back,” she said.
“I didn't know what to do because... your immune system is completely fucked.”
The long journey had a major impact on Shonel’s mental health, even though she describes herself as a strong-minded person.
Shonel describes herself as a "strong-minded" person. Source: Supplied
“Naturally I'm not an anxious person, I've always been an optimistic positive person through life, but obviously when you're diagnosed… the fear, the anxiety is there and I felt it on a level I've never felt before,” she told The Feed.
Battling breast cancer amid the coronavirus pandemic has been an exhausting journey for Shonel and her family, but after multiple chemotherapy sessions, radiation and turning to natural medicines, she eventually defeated the cancer.
“I was lucky enough to receive the good news quite early in my treatment. I had another MRI and they couldn't actually see the cancer on there anymore,” she said.
“When I heard those words, I was in the surgeon's office, I was just looking at him almost through him just in disbelief. I was elated to hear the news, it was the best thing I could have heard.”
The impact of COVID on cancer screenings
Acting CEO of the Cancer Council, Megan Varlow, told The Feed that cancer screening saves lives whether that’s for breast, cervical or bowel cancer.
“Cancer screening is really important because it does two things. Firstly, it detects changes before it becomes cancer. So precancerous changes that allow you to treat that and prevent cancer from developing in the first place. But it also is an opportunity to detect cancer before it develops.”
Ms Varlow says that COVID-19 has led to a drop in cancer screenings for a range of reasons.
“So breast screen was closed for about a month in the beginning of the lockdown and so that meant women couldn't attend breast screening. But we also know that people were reluctant once the clinics reopened to go out and to visit a hospital and to have that sort of screening done.”
Dr Gallagher told The Feed that the government stopping screening programs was an “interesting” decision to make.
“I looked at the figures for how many people in New South Wales have died of COVID-19 and it's somewhere between 50 and 60 at the moment.”
“I think boy, there's thousands of people who haven't had this breast screening done so the number of people who will be impacted on and potentially have delayed diagnosis and maybe even die is certainly going to be much greater than 50 or 60.”
Ms Varlow says the message is very clear “cancer screening saves lives, but only if you participate.”
Shonel says it's heartbreaking to hear that fewer people are attending cancer screenings. Source: Supplied
“GP clinics continued to be open during the early stages of the pandemic, they were able to offer cervical screenings, but women just weren’t going, bowel screening didn't change, the kits were still sent out and people were not doing it.”
“So there's so much that you can do to continue to encourage screening, but ultimately, it's about individuals crossing cancer screening off the list.”
Shonel says the plummet in people presenting to cancer screenings is a major worry.
At the beginning of her cancer journey, she says she couldn’t find any triple-negative breast cancer success stories, so she decided to become her own.
“When you hear you've got cancer your mind goes to death, we all know that [but] even if you’re told that it's stage 4 there is still so much hope, there is always hope, there are so many amazing stories out there.”
Shonel says while going through treatment she's had her bad moments but her focus has been on staying positive and allowing the negative thoughts to come and go.
Shonel is urging people to go to cancer screenings. Source: Enchanted Wedding Photography
“It's shit, like going through cancer is fucking shit but there is still some beauty in there,” she said.
“You just kind of need to alter your vision to see it and it may be hard to see it while you're in the midst of it but when you're on the other side of it, you can see clearer and there is so much beauty here.”
