This October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Every year, 2.3 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer across the world, meaning that every 14 seconds, somewhere on the planet, a woman is diagnosed with the disease. Among them is FRANCE 24 journalist Aurore Cloé Dupuis, who found out she had breast cancer in 2022. In this edition of Entre Nous, she shares her story.
This Entre Nous aired on Paris Direct, October 2, 2024.A programme produced by Amanda Alexander
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This Entre Nous aired on Paris Direct, October 2, 2024.A programme produced by Amanda Alexander
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NewsTranscript
00:00This October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
00:04Every year, 2.3 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer, and 670,000 died around
00:10the world.
00:12Every 14 seconds, somewhere on the planet, a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer.
00:17Well, those latest figures come from 2022, the year that a young France 24 journalist
00:22found out that she had breast cancer herself.
00:25Her name is Aurore-Chloé Dupuy, and she joins me on the set now to tell us a bit more about
00:29her own story.
00:30Aurore, hello.
00:31Hi, Jeannie.
00:32First of all, thank you so much for sharing this with us.
00:34I mean, it's such a deeply personal story for you, and we really appreciate your insight,
00:37especially this month.
00:39Let's start with your diagnosis.
00:40What do you remember exactly about that day?
00:43When the oncologist tells you the news, the only word that keeps ringing in your head
00:47is the word cancer.
00:48You don't hear anything else.
00:50She goes on about the type of cancer that you have, the operation, the treatments that
00:55you can get.
00:56I didn't hear any of that.
00:57I was just squeezing my husband's hand, and the only thought that popped into my head
01:01was, is this going to kill me?
01:04And the only thing I could think about was my children, because they were three and five
01:08years old at the time.
01:09Sorry.
01:10They were very young, and I didn't understand why I had cancer, because I was young.
01:16I was 37, and I didn't drink, didn't smoke.
01:20I was healthy.
01:21I used to ride my bike every day.
01:23I had no family history.
01:27Two years ago, I felt this really uncomfortable pain in my right breast, and it was almost
01:32like a sharp electric shock, and it wouldn't go away.
01:35I got it checked, and the gynecologist told me that there was nothing there in the right
01:39breast.
01:40However, on the left side, there was something really tiny that we needed to monitor, but
01:44there was nothing to worry about, because I had no family history, and considering my
01:49age, there was nothing to worry about.
01:51I came back a month later to get it checked, and the lump had grown from almost nothing
01:56to four centimeters in one month, and that's when my life just turned upside down.
02:02Yeah.
02:03I mean, for so many people, and we just can't even imagine what that's like, and like you
02:07said, you did have two small children at the time, three and five years old.
02:11How did you go about coping as a family?
02:15It was tough.
02:16At first, I didn't want to say anything to my kids, because they were so young.
02:20They had never been confronted to death.
02:23They didn't know what cancer was, and I didn't really know how to go about it.
02:27We were very lucky, because we were put in touch with a psychiatrist who specializes
02:31in cancer, and she told us that we have to be transparent with young kids.
02:36We have to tell them the truth with simple words, because obviously, they're too young
02:40to understand fully, but what we told them was, mommy's very ill, and she's going to
02:45be very ill for a long time, so I'm not going to be able to play with you.
02:49I'm not going to be able to get out of bed sometimes.
02:52I will feel nauseous, but I'm in good hands, and doctors are here to help me, so I'll be
02:57in hospital quite a lot, but they're there to help me.
03:02That was really tough.
03:04I ended up in intensive care twice because of COVID and the flu, because my immune system
03:10was so low because of chemotherapy.
03:13That was really hard, because it was right during the Christmas season, so I missed my
03:17daughter's Christmas party, the first Christmas show that she was doing at school.
03:22I had a panic attack.
03:25My face just got paralyzed, and I couldn't talk.
03:28My mom thought I was having a heart attack.
03:31Because of the fear of passing that on to my children, I have a daughter, and I'm always
03:37worried that she might get the same thing as me later on, even though I don't have the gene.
03:42I didn't finish all my treatments, unfortunately, because I didn't have enough white blood counts
03:47so I only had 14 rounds of chemo instead of 16, so I always wonder, I wish that I could
03:55have finished my treatment.
03:57Your story, Aurora, unfortunately, isn't a unique one.
04:00Something that was news to me was how much breast cancer affects young women, and you've
04:05been talking to a lot of young women around the world for us.
04:07Absolutely.
04:08A lot of them have told me that they've either been misdiagnosed or diagnosed too late.
04:14For cancer in young patients, it's very, very important that you get treated early.
04:19So I wanted to give a voice to the survivors, and I want you to listen to their stories.
04:25In one week, over the course of the exams, I went from two lumps in the breast to three
04:29to six.
04:30It was really fast.
04:33I was 33, and I was 10 and a half weeks pregnant.
04:38I did actually have one doctor who basically shamed me for deciding to keep my baby.
04:47I've just finished treatment for a second breast cancer.
04:51There was a huge spread of cells that required a heavy treatment, both chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
04:57He's getting mammograms done earlier, breast care, self-exams done.
05:01I mean, admittedly, I wasn't as proactive on that front as I could have been.
05:07If I had been 50 or 60 years old, would they not have done a biopsy right away?
05:12That would have spared me going through chemo, radiation, and all that that entails, which
05:16is really hard to live through.
05:17Yeah, it's so interesting to hear those women saying, you know, I had no idea.
05:22And I think the lack of knowledge is a real problem for women, young and old.
05:25Absolutely.
05:26When I was diagnosed, I knew nothing about breast cancer.
05:29I mean, call me naive, but I was simply too young in my head to get cancer.
05:34There are different types of breast cancer.
05:36Most people don't know about this.
05:37There's the cancers that feed off hormones, so like oestrogen and progesterone.
05:41Some cancers feed off both, others spread a protein called HER2.
05:48And these are the most common types of breast cancers.
05:52The type of cancer that I got is called triple negative, which means it has none of the features
05:58that we've just discussed.
06:00It has no oestrogen or progesterone receptors, and it doesn't produce the HER2 protein, which
06:07means that all the targeted treatments that are already existing now cannot apply to me
06:13because they simply just wouldn't work.
06:15So what I did get was chemotherapy, immunotherapy.
06:18This is the new thing now, and it's my hope that it does work because it's an aggressive
06:24type of cancer and it spreads faster than any type of cancer.
06:29It largely targets young women, women of color as well.
06:33My grandmother's from Madagascar.
06:35And also women who might have the BRCA genes, which is not my case.
06:41So yeah, the good news is though, even if you have TNBC, triple negative breast cancer,
06:47if it gets caught early, you can survive.
06:49Which again, which is why spreading awareness is so important, particularly not just during
06:52this month of breast cancer awareness, but all the time.
06:56Absolutely.
06:57And that's why you need to know your breasts.
07:00You need to check yourself in the mirror every day, in the shower, when you're lying down
07:03in your bed, check your breasts, try and learn all the symptoms.
07:06There's so many resources out there on the internet where you can get informed and learn
07:11about the symptoms that you could get.
07:13Extreme fatigue, nipple discharge, sensitive breasts.
07:18But be careful as well, because I had none of these symptoms when I was diagnosed.
07:22I couldn't feel any lumps, nothing at all.
07:26So you need to be really careful because young women often have dense breast tissue
07:30and they have a lot of muscle, so you can't necessarily palpate, you can't feel sometimes
07:35the lump.
07:36So you have to really advocate for yourselves.
07:38And please, please, please ask your doctors for a mammography or an ultrasound.
07:44If you have any doubt, ask for a second opinion.
07:46And Aurora, I mean, you've been through this, you're going through it still yourself.
07:50Do you have tips for those who might be watching us who are just starting their fight?
07:56Get yourself informed, sign up to your local groups in your community.
08:03There's a lot of great groups on Facebook and other social media.
08:08You can get free webinars, you can seek help with the ones that you love.
08:14And always keep your eyes on the prize.
08:18What I say is, the prize is that you have to live and don't give up.
08:23Because if you start, it's so hard because you have all these negative thoughts and you
08:27think, you know, I might die from this.
08:30But it's very important that you stay strong and you have to live, especially if you have
08:35young children.
08:38And for me, what saved me was dark humour, sense of humour.
08:43You know, you become dreadful.
08:45When you go through chemo, you lose your hair, you lose your eyebrows, you lose everything.
08:48The only thing that I didn't lose was my leg hairs, which made me laugh.
08:54So you have to kind of see the positive in what you're going through, because otherwise
08:58you, I would have gone mental.
09:01I did not believe the doctors when they told me that I had cancer.
09:04And I asked for three different biopsies.
09:07It was, yeah, nerve wracking.
09:09And it's important to have a network of people that are there for you.
09:16And to tap into resources, there's a website as well that women can check out.
09:20Is it just breastcancerawareness.org, I believe?
09:22Yes, absolutely.
09:23And I believe that we have, we might have a screen grab of that and you can check how
09:27you can self-examinate yourself.
09:30And there are great, great tips on there where you can, you can seek some more information.
09:33Thank you so much.
09:34Thank you so much for coming in to talk to us and for sharing your story for us.
09:37We really do appreciate it.