Emilie Daudin (EmilieBrunette on Instagram) was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer at the age of 33, when she was a young mother. The content creator looks back on her journey, from diagnosis to remission and encourages early detection.
Has only 33 Years, Emilie Daudinentrepreneur, podcaster and content creator (@emiliebrunette on instagram), is diagnosed withtriple negative breast cancer, the most aggressive form of breast cancer. The life of the young mother changes. However, she remains hopeful and positive throughout her treatment. A strength of character that leads her into remission and that leads her today to make as many women as possible aware of this disease. Very committed to the subject, Emilie insisted on confiding in the Journal des Femmeson the occasion of Gilead’s prevention campaign against Triple Negative Breast Cancer (CSTN), of which she is the ambassador. Back to Emilie’s story.
“The ball hurts like electric shocks in the breast”.
In September 2019, Emilie gives birth to a little girl, her second child. Three months later, she is starting to have pain after her milk comes in. “The pain persists and I feel, during a rather gentle physical exercise, a lump in the breast, which I immediately identify as something round“, she recalls. To remove doubt and reassure herself, Emilie consults a midwife, then another. A priori, nothing serious sincewe keep telling him, “breast cancer does not hurt (“In hindsight, I know it’s wrong, breast cancer can hurt“). It’s probably a muscle tear and it will pass on its own.“.
However, she insists on having a prescription to perform an ultrasound… which she “stupidly” loses in a move. Months pass and “the ball” continues to hurt him, “like electric shocks“. But taken in the daily life of a young mother, “we no longer dare take the time to stop and think about ourselves“. However, she ends up spending a breast ultrasound on October 1, 2020. “I go there carefree, thinking of nothing serious. At the sight of the results, the ultrasound indicates to me that it is necessary that I do a mammogram. In my head, I tell myself that I forgot to warn her that I had a muscle tear, to which she replies that the pains are not due to a muscle tear at all. I’m starting to say to myself “Olala, but what is this madness!”.
“After a week, the diagnosis falls and I learn that I have 6 tumors in the breast”
Classified ACR5, the mammogram is not good. This corresponds to a mammogram with an abnormality suggestive of breast cancer, and for which further investigation remains essential. Emilie has to sleep in Paris (she lives in Rouen) to do an emergency biopsy, then a breast MRI. “After a week, the diagnosis falls and I learn that I have cancer, 6 tumors in the breast. It is a tsunami of distress and fear. I lose all my innocence and I tell myself that my children will grow up orphans (my daughter was celebrating her first birthday the day before the ultrasound) and they will have no memory of their mother“. Emilie is in shock, especially since she has no risk factors (no family history of breast cancer, BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene test negative, healthy lifestyle, athletic, non-smoker…). She then passes a PET-Scan to define the grade of the cancer. “Fortunately, my cancer is stage II, that is, the tumors have multiplied in the breast, but they have not not spread to lymph nodes or other organs. I’m really very lucky.”
Comes the time to chemotherapy, implemented one month after diagnosis. In total, the young woman participates in 16 chemotherapy sessions between November 3, 2020 to March 16, 2021. “At first, I’m very scared, I think it’s going to take all my energy and I won’t be able to do anything else. The first sessions are terrible and make me sick. In the end, it’s going pretty well and I’m very lucky, because it’s winter and in the middle of the second confinement, so staying at home is the norm for everyone. Nobody has a social life anymore so I’m not more frustrated than the others“. The life of a young mother, however, remains very turned upside down. “We are very tired, especially at the beginning. The 2 days following the chemo, I am bedridden, but then I realize that I can take care of my children. I cook, I play with them, I pick them up from school and nursery, I’m there. And then I’m lucky because their dad is there, for me, for them“. Emily has a mastectomy (breast removal), but no axillary dissection (a step that involves removing a set of lymph nodes from the armpit during breast cancer surgery). Everything that is removed during the surgery (tumor and/or lymph nodes) is then sent to the laboratory or the anatomopathology department to be analyzed and see if there are any cancerous cells remaining. “At home unfortunately, there are 20% left, but it is not alarming“. Emilie has oral chemotherapy as well as radiotherapy. Her breast reconstruction date is scheduled for the end of October. She is currently in remission. “I feel really lucky and grateful in this journey“, she insists, well aware that her natural optimism “helped her considerably in this ordeal“.
Since then, Emilie has remained committed and active in breast cancer awareness. She is also an ambassador for Gilead’s prevention campaign (a biopharmaceutical company) against Triple Negative Breast Cancer, launched at thePink October 2022. “The idea is to make doctors and women aware of this pathology and the importance of adopting the right reflexes and the right gestures to identify an anomaly or a change in the breasts. Women should be encouraged to see a doctor who can check if it is a mild anomaly or if it is more serious. We must not let go before having a concrete result because only they know their body so well. Something different, unusual should not be overlooked! As the campaign says, it may be 3 times nothing but… you still have to be 100% sure“. She wishes to send a message to women confronted with the disease: “Iyou have to hang on to the end dateto the fact that science is advancing, that there are lots of new treatments that are coming, to the positive things in life… And to think that it is not incompatible to lead a family life with cancer. Cancer does not mean “end”. So yes, it’s the end of what we knew before. But life does not stop, quite the contrary“.
| Triple negative breast cancer is 15% of all breast cancers diagnosedi.e. close to 9,000 each year in France. This form, one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer, affects younger women on average (under 40) and progresses rapidly. 60% of women with this cancer diagnosed early can be cured. Among the most common symptoms: a lump that does not shrink or go away, a change in the size or shape of the breast, sharp breast pain, an inverted nipple… |
Thanks to Emilie Daudin for her testimony. Interview on October 4, 2022.