My mother Christina died on the 8th of July 2003. This was thirteen days after my thirteenth birthday.

For her, and like many others, metastatic breast cancer was to be the first of a long list of cancers that would eventually destroy her body. After mum was first diagnosed with breast cancer when I was eight, our years were spent swinging back and forth from cancer to remission to cancer. Although perhaps I did not notice it at the time, the constant worry over mum took more energy than I had, and as a result I am still unable to remember even the simplest things from that time, such as who my friends and teachers were.

My mother’s death changed everything in an instant. In my quest to be able to function from the day to day, I forced myself to compartmentalise my agony and focus on my family’s well-being, especially my father. Outwardly I showed very little emotion over the matter and became rather business-like and abrupt. Many friends and family members were often taken aback by my ‘crass’ manner of talking about her death, as I was never one to mince my words. She was dead, not passed away. To this day I can’t stand that phrasing. Politeness isn’t going to bring her back. I was dealing with it the only way I knew how, by calling it how I saw it.

As the months passed my grades predictably dropped and my time was spent perfectly spilt between craving human contacts when I was alone, and praying for solitude whenever anyone came near me. My emotional compartmentalisation had also created unexpected physical consequences. Over the next year and a half, I became ill with stress induced acid reflux, migraines and insomnia. As I began to deal with my emotions head on, my grades began improving and the health problems went away. Since my mother’s death I have not sought any counselling or therapy. This decision was not reached out of fear, arrogance, or even pride. For me, it just never felt right. I didn’t want to talk about me; I wanted to talk about her. So if I needed to talk I went to friends and family who knew her, and understood that I was far more interested in laughing than crying.

Today, I am studying International Relations at the Australian National University. At 18 years old, I have already had three breast cancer scares. Thankfully they were all cysts, and the importance of early detection is certainly not lost on me. I am in the very high risk category for breast cancer with plenty of family history on both sides. I understand my risks completely and know my chances of getting it. That being said I personally am not an advocate of pre-emptive mastectomies.

The Pre-emptive strategy didn’t work on Iraq because they had no weapons of mass destruction, and there is a good chance that my boobs don’t either.