When Nalie heard her pathology report for the first time it sounded like Chinese to her.
Transcript
I think I was completely clueless about breast cancer and I think that’s a huge reason why I decided to make my story so public. With my blog, I write about everything that I know about breast cancer and everything that I’m going through and take videos of what it’s like, because as a 20 something year old, you have no idea what it’s like. The furthest campaigns go is to show you pink ribbons and everything pink, and that’s as far as awareness is brought. So I wanted to really bring that type of awareness and make it raw and real through my blog and my videos. Because as a 20 something year old you don’t know anything about breast cancer. And I will admit it, the first time my surgeon and my oncologist read my diagnosis and read my pathology report and he said, “It was hormone positive estrogen, progesterone positive, HER2* (Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor-2) negative…”, you hear that and it just sounds like Chinese to you. You don’t know what that means. Well obviously now, having heard it over and over and over again, and asking questions, I’m much more aware of my diagnosis but still, it’s not something that everyone knows. If you don’t study in the medical field, you don’t really understand.
*HER2: A gene present in cells that, in some breast cancer cases has a mutation. This mutation causes the HER2 gene to be overproduced in breast cells, causing cells to be more aggressive. However treatments that target HER2 are very effective.”.
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