Three women in my family, close relatives, have had breast cancer, and two have died from it, and still I never thought it could happen to me. I didn't even regularly check my breasts.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004.

With the arrogance of youth, I thought, 'I don't drink, don't smoke, I don't do drugs, so why would I get cancer?' The week I spent waiting for the result of the biopsy to see if it was malignant felt like the longest of my life.

Breast cancer is thought to use cholesterol to help the cancer migrate and invade more tissue.

In a very real way, the whole family has cancer. Traditionally, we thought of the disease being contained within the patient. But if we look at it from the other lens, we see how it hits the emotions and social relationships of families.

A lot of the things that happened to me came out of the blue, but I'm exactly the same person now as I was when I was sick. I'm still a very optimistic person.