MP Jane Garrett’s openness with breast cancer battle will help others

EVERY time someone well-known talks about their experiences with cancer, it inspires countless others to get that check-up they’d been putting off, writes Susie O’Brien.

Cancer is always horrible news but it’s particularly difficult for someone so young as Ms Garrett.

I GREATLY admire Jane Garrett’s openness about her fight with breast cancer. It can’t be easy to share such private news so publicly, but I welcome the fact that she has done so.

Every time someone well-known talks about their experiences with this disease, it inspires countless others to get that check-up they’d been putting off, have a mammogram or do a breast self-examination.

Screening rates soared after Kylie Minogue, Gina Riley and Kerry-Anne Kennerley revealed they had breast cancer.

This caps off a particularly brutal year for Ms Garrett. She was the former Minister for Emergency Services, who resigned her position controversially amid the CFA enterprise bargaining dispute.

Screening rates soar every time someone well-known talks about their experiences with cancer.

Although breast cancer sufferers are most commonly women in their 60s, we tend to hear more about the younger women fighting this disease.

A cancer diagnosis is always horrible news but there’s no doubt it’s particularly difficult for someone so young — Ms Garrett is just 43 — and has three children.

No doubt Ms Garrett is like many other sufferers in her position; thinking primarily of those around her rather than herself.

At a time when many women are literally fighting for their lives, sometimes it’s the little things that occupy them the most.

Who to tell, what to say, and when?

How much do you say to the kids?

How much time to take off work?

Wig or no wig? Scarf or shave?

Knowing there are others out there going through the same thing can reduce the sigma and uncertainty of such issues.

Luckily, breast cancer survival rates are better than they have ever been, and the earlier the detection, the higher the chance of full recovery.

The chance of surviving five years post diagnosis is now 90 per cent.

Breast cancer is a disease that touches just about every family, either directly or indirectly.

Every year 16,000 new cases will be diagnosed, making it the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia ahead of prostate cancer and bowel cancer.

Today I am not just thinking of Ms Garrett, but all families touched by cancer.

Best of luck to you all.