World Cancer Day – Know Your Lemons

Today is World Cancer Day- a day used worldwide to raise awareness of cancer and to encourage its prevention, detection, and treatment.

As my regular readers will know, I sadly lost my Mum to secondary breast cancer in 2014. She was just 63 years old, and lost her battle just 9 months after being diagnosed.

Unfortunately for my Mum, despite breast cancer being one of the most treatable of cancers in this decade, she contracted a highly aggressive form of triple negative, which does not respond to some of the most effective drugs and as such, has the lowest survival rates.

Mum was ‘lucky’ in some respects that she found her lump very quickly. She checked her breasts daily in the shower, so was confident that she couldn’t have acted any sooner upon its discovery. This, if nothing else, gave her an additional 9 months with her family.

Today, I wanted to share a fantastic campaign that has been created to help women recognise the symptoms of Breast Cancer sooner, and thus enable them to get the treatment they need. Unlike other picture guides I have seen in recent years, this one is not easy to scroll on past and it is something that ALL women can relate to and understand. You don’t have to be a science expert to understand the message, or even be able to read – the images are clear and easy to follow.

The Know Your Lemons campaign has found a fantastic visual way of showcasing the symptoms and changes you might expect from breast cancer, without requiring imagery of the female body – something which is often censored – particularly in certain cultures.

For me the important message here is that it is not just a lump that you need to watch out for, but ANY changes to your breasts (as above) that aren’t ‘normal’ for you.

If you pay attention to just one message this World Cancer Day, please make it this one. It could just save your life #knowyourlemons.

You can learn more about Know Your Lemons and their mission, as well as donating to the charity on their website here.