Two sisters in their 30s – each diagnosed with breast cancer just weeks apart – are using their own experiences to help shine a light on the disease and encourage others to be aware of the importance of self checking… especially in early age.
Aisling Muckian (32) and Áine Mallie (34) from Silverbridge, Co Armagh are both busy working mums of two. Aside from the standard tiredness that comes with being a parent of two young children, neither had been experiencing any symptoms of underlying health issues.
Then in May of this year, when Aisling was engaging in her weekly self-care “ritual” of moisturising and tanning, she discovered a lump. But, she says, it wasn’t at all what she had expected.
Speaking to Armagh I, Aisling explained that evening: “I would have done my tan every week. I was a ritual person… scrub on Wednesday and tan on Thursday. I would have been moisturising and – not that it would have been a daily check – but it was probably a month and a half to every two months I would have had a good feel around and focused on what I was doing.
“It was one of those times I was moisturising and I felt something and then checked the other side but it wasn’t on the other side. Then I got my partner to check and he wasn’t sure and both of us said it wasn’t like a pea-size… it was bigger, long and flat almost.
“I thought it would have been pea-size or we would have been getting other symptoms but it was just the lump and tiredness but even the doctor said like we both had little children and it was normal to feel tired.”
Better to be safe than sorry, Aisling did what she would advise anyone to do and contacted her doctor to arrange a check-up. The next day she was booked in and her doctor reassured her that the lump was likely cystic but referred her for a biopsy to be sure.
And while Aisling said she “put it to the back of my mind”, sadly the news she had been dreading came on May 27 when she was informed she had Grade 3c BRCA2+ Breast Cancer.
Naturally, she had been speaking to her family and friends in the interim, explaining what she had found. Airing on the side of caution, Áine performed her own self check… and also discovered a lump.
Explaining her sister’s discovery, Aisling said: “Áine said the same, hers wasn’t a pea-size either… it was flat and circular. Hers was on the top of her breast and mine was right in underneath.”
Áine found her lump just weeks after Aisling, on June 13… the same day her little girl took her first steps.
She had only recently returned to work from maternity leave and was really “enjoying life”. For both women, their diagnoses and subsequent treatment has created a whirlwind.
Being in their 30s, Aisling and Áine are not stereotypical breast cancer patients. But, both sisters believe that more needs to be said about the cancer in younger people and that it needs to be taken more seriously by doctors when younger people report finding unusual lumps.
“When they [younger people] go in, it’s not taken as seriously as someone in their 40s and 50s coming in,” said Aisling. “What people don’t realise is that when under 40s are diagnosed it’s typically more aggressive cancer. It’s not something that is even talked about. It’s not the case for everybody but it is more likely to be more aggressive and more likely to be a gene than anything else.”
Bringing her onto another crucial point of discussion, Aisling explains the incredible value in knowing at least some of your family medical history.
Said Aisling: “My Grandmother passed away about 45 years ago so long before we were ever about. Nothing was ever really talked about. She had breast cancer and bone cancer. By the time she was even seen or noticed she was already very unwell. Her primary was breast cancer.
“I do have the gene, my blood results were took about two and a half months back because I was the only living relative with the gene so it was sent off for gene testing. But it’s education for myself and I have two daughters so obviously that’s the first thing I think of with the gene that it could potentially carry on.
“But now I can tell them to check their breasts when they are old enough and they have the opportunity when they turn 18 to get tested for the gene. They recommend that you do the test before they are 25 and I will pray from now until they are that age that they don’t have it but if, unfortunately, they do there will be so many different things offered up to them as preventatives.”
Urging the public to find out as much as they can, she said: “If a grandparent passed away with cancer just look into what that cancer was. I don’t mean to go way into the family history but do just have a look into it and find out what was their primary cancer.”
In the months following their diagnoses both women have undergone mastectomies and lymph node clearances. Aisling started her chemotherapy in August and Aine followed suit with her treatment commencing at the end of September.
And while neither would wish the diagnosis on the other, in a way, they are so grateful to have each other to lean on through the process.
“We have always been very close. We weren’t laughing but in the same sense me and Áine tend to do everything at the same time. One of our pregnancies was together and we ended up being in hospital at the same time together and our ones kind of laughed, ‘Trust you two!’
“I don’t want it for her. I’d rather do it alone but, if we had to get it, I’d rather do it at the same time. It sounds strange but there is a comfort in that.
“That level of comfort, I help her with things and she helps me and asking each other, ‘Is this normal?’ or ‘When did you get that?’ Having that reassurance.
“We have had our chemo apart three weeks apart and it’s a rough 8 to 10 days but then you get 10 days afterwards that you feel a bit more normal so it’s that reassurance I can give her that she will get to have those days and be able to do normal things.”
The pair – who are normally intensely private – have now created an Instagram page under the handle ‘Silverbridge Sisters’ to document their journey, spread some awareness for breast cancer and the importance of early detection.
Here, they encourage anyone who needs to talk, vent or even just follow along silently to do so… and if they help “one person” to self check or “push for answers” then they say it will all have been worth it.
Aisling said before she made her first post on the page she was riddled with anxiety and felt almost as though she was “admitting to the world” that she had breast cancer or “putting a label” on both herself and Áine.
However, in the days that have passed she now says she feels like a sense of “peace” has “washed over” her with the immense support and sheer volume of messages they have received to say people have been encouraged to check their breasts or even just to send positive words of encouragement to the sisters.
