Breast cancer is something no teenager should have to face, yet it became a harsh reality for 17-year-old Jenna Skews.
Finding a lump in her breast during her Grade 11 final exams in 2011 was a life-changer.
“The lump was big and moveable and while doctors suspected it was nothing serious, they recommended a lumpectomy,” she says.
Her post-surgery appointment was a bombshell. Tests revealed the lump to be malignant – a rare and aggressive Phyllodes tumour.
There was a chance it could reoccur, in which case it would be more aggressive. A mastectomy was recommended and she would not need chemotherapy or radiation.
She would have an immediate reconstruction and a reduction on the other side to ensure symmetry. The operation was scheduled for the end of the first week of the new school year in 2012.
“I went back to school and was on autopilot that week. I told only my best friend and the head of academics – everyone else just thought I was getting a lump removed from my breast.
“How could my peers understand what was happening to me? I didn’t want to be labelled ‘cancer girl’ or ‘the girl with fake boobs’.”
She took just two weeks off to recover so as not to miss too much school.
“Not only did my body need to heal – I also had to come to terms with losing my breast.
“Cancer changed my matric year significantly. I was in a different place from everyone else. I withdrew and also found out who my true friends were.”
Medical check-ups and ultrasounds meant time off school but she managed to catch up and in some ways schoolwork kept her mind off her cancer experience.
“School closed in June and I had the second stage of my reconstruction. When my peers talked about what they had done in the holidays, no-one knew what I had had done! A rumour spread throughout the school that I had had a breast reduction – why would I take three weeks off for that? It was awful.”
Despite a disrupted school year, she passed matric and enrolled at the University of Johannesburg for a degree in psychology.
“I had become increasingly self-conscious about the difference in my left and right breasts. My left breast was a prosthetic, reconstructed breast. The right one had been lifted and reduced, but there was still a big difference between the two.”
In the mid-year break of her first year of varsity, she opted for a mastectomy and reconstruction on the right breast.
“I lost my womanhood, my boobs and my femininity before I even knew what they meant to me. We only know what our boobs mean to us when we lose them.
“Reconstruction can make your shape look normal but it will never replace the real thing.”
Her cancer experience has given her a new perspective of life.
“I am more aware of illnesses, especially cancers. I have realised that I am not immune to a life-threatening disease because I am young. I am luckier than many cancer patients – the cancer had not spread and I didn’t have to have chemo or radiation. I truly got the best of a bad situation.”
Jenna is active in the Breast Health Foundation’s support and awareness group Bosom Buddies. She gives talks to raise awareness, highlighting that even teenagers can get breast cancer.
This month, under the auspices of the Breast Health Foundation, she and three others climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise awareness of breast cancer.
“It took us about four days to summit and it was exhausting, despite the endurance training we had done.
But it was stunning to get to the summit.”
* Breast Health Foundation – www.mybreast.org.za