Gloucestershire breast cancer survivor urges younger women to regularly check their breasts
Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding passed away from the illness aged 39
A breast cancer survivor from Gloucestershire is urging all women - especially those who are younger - to regularly check their breasts for lumps.
It comes as 39-year-old singer Sarah Harding - who was a member of the pop group Girls Aloud - passed away from the illness on Sunday (September 5).
She was diagnosed during the pandemic last year and in her autobiography, Hear Me Out, she revealed she didn't seek medical advice when she first found lumps under her arm in December 2019.
69-year-old Karen Harris was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 42-years-old.
She had to wait just over a year for a formal diagnosis because she says doctors were dismissive that she has the illness due to her age.
"It makes me very angry every time I hear it, I say to my husband "oh here we go again"", she says.
"I hear people say it only really affects women over 50 and to me its giving out wrong information.
"It's being dismissive at the fact that it is prevalent in younger women and also men too."
How to check your breasts
There’s no special way to check your breasts and you do not need any training.
Checking your breasts is as easy as TLC:
- Touch your breasts: can you feel anything new or unusual?
- Look for changes: does anything look different to you?
- Check any new or unusual changes with a GP
- A guide on how to check can be found here
Sarah's consultant, Dr Sacha Howell, is now urging people to check signs for the illness regularly.
It's something being echoed by Karen, who said: "By checking yourself every month you will be so aware of any change in your body and you'll know if something isn't right which needs to be checked out.
"Yes it is frightening for younger women at the thought it could be cancer, but please get it checked out because the earlier you go the stronger the survival rate.
"I think there needs to be more information targeted at younger women about this. My advice is to not believe what you see online because it's just to generalised."