Jessica, 33, pushed for answers when one breast suddenly changed – but was told she was ‘too young’ to worry. A year later she found out she had cancer all along

Jessica Lee Pearce had her breasts checked after noticing a change and was told not to worry.

It was 13 months before she was diagnosed with breast cancer and the Melbourne nursing assistant had noticed thickening and a change in one breast. 

She booked a breast screen, underwent an ultrasound, mammograms and further imaging, and was told the results were inconclusive.

Jessica had dense breasts and previous breast implants, and she eventually carried on with her life, reassured that nothing sinister had been found. 

Then, at 33, she felt a lump in the shower.

‘I knew straight away,’ Jessica, now 36, told the Daily Mail.

The discovery was particularly frightening because breast cancer had never felt like a distant possibility to Jessica.

Her grandmother had been diagnosed at just 29, while one of her closest friends had developed stage three breast cancer in her early 30s while breastfeeding twins. 

Jessica had become more vigilant about her own breast health as a result, and so she returned to her GP, who could also feel the lump and referred her for further testing.

Within weeks, Jessica learnt she had stage two, hormone-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.

Genetic testing would bring another shock: she carried a BRCA2 gene mutation that had unknowingly been running through her family.

What followed was a double mastectomy, four rounds of chemotherapy, 25 radiation treatments and years of hormone therapy that forced Jessica into menopause in her early 30s.

Almost three years later, the most intensive treatment is behind her, but Jessica says cancer has left its mark on almost every part of her life.

‘I’m exhausted, I’m in pain, I’m trying to work. It’s not a nice feeling, life after cancer,’ she said.

‘You just kind of feel like you’re stripped of everything, and you’ve got to build yourself back up.’ 

A lump appeared 13 months after an inconclusive breast screen 

Jessica first became concerned about her breasts more than a year before her eventual diagnosis.

One of Jessica’s close friends from high school was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in her early 30s while raising four children, including one-year-old twins.

Watching her friend go through treatment made Jessica more conscious of checking her own body.

‘There was that bit of relief because it was only a bit of thickening – but I still had no idea what else I was feeling,’ she said.

She also remembers encountering comments about her age while seeking breast checks.

‘When I was going in to see the radiologist, they said, “Oh, you’re too young to be checking”. It made me feel a bit silly,’ she said.

‘I struggled to say the word cancer’

Over a year later, Jessica almost attended the appointment that would change her life alone.

She had already been investigated once, and when her husband Adam received a last-minute medical appointment, she told him to go. One of her friends accompanied her instead. When Jessica was told she had breast cancer, she broke down. 

‘We got in the car and I thought, “What is going on?” Then we made some phone calls, and I struggled to say the word cancer,’ she said.

Her friend helped tell Jessica’s family and Adam.

‘You just go through all these emotions, it’s very surreal, and you think that this surely couldn’t be your life,’ she said.

Further testing established that Jessica had stage two, hormone-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. A sentinel node biopsy found no cancer there, but another biopsy detected cancer in her right areola.

Then genetic testing revealed Jessica carried a BRCA2 gene mutation, a result that would influence her treatment and expose a previously unknown pattern within her family.

The BRCA2 result changed her treatment – and her family’s future 

Jessica’s grandmother had developed breast cancer at 29, while an aunt had also experienced the disease when she was young. An uncle died from pancreatic cancer at 45, but genetic testing had not been done at the time.

Until Jessica received her result, the family hadn’t known they carried a BRCA2 mutation.

Since then, her father, one of her brothers and one of her cousins have also learnt they carry it, while other relatives have either tested negative, are awaiting testing or have not yet been screened.

‘I have been the first to open up this big can of worms,’ Jessica said.

The result also helped determine Jessica’s next step. Doctors had been waiting to learn whether she carried the mutation before deciding between a single and double mastectomy.

Jessica underwent a double mastectomy with immediate reconstruction. But before treatment progressed, she made another decision about her future.

Jessica and Adam already had three boys between them and hadn’t planned to have another child together. Even so, facing cancer made Jessica suddenly conscious of losing the choice. Before treatment put her into menopause, she froze four eggs.

The mum initially thought she could donate the eggs if she never used them herself, but discovering her BRCA2 mutation complicated those plans.

Unable to accept simply discarding them, she donated the eggs to the MitoHOPE research program, where they could contribute to research into mitochondrial disease.

‘I can’t have them go into the bin,’ she recalled thinking.

The decision reflected something Jessica would repeatedly try to do during treatment: reclaim some control over what happened to her and, where possible, use it to help someone else.

Knowing she would struggle to watch her long hair gradually fall out, she decided to shave it the day before treatment began. Her partner, son, stepsons and other family members joined her in solidarity. Jessica donated her hair to Wigs for Kids.

After completing chemotherapy, she went on to have 25 radiation sessions.

Throughout it all, she and Adam were also trying to help their children understand what was happening. 

Her nine-year-old asked if she was going to die 

Jessica and Adam waited until they knew more about her diagnosis before sitting down with the boys, who were seven, nine, and 10 at the time.

‘I just found out I’ve got a lump that they’ve got to investigate. It is breast cancer. I know that word might sound scary,’ she recalled telling them.

Jessica became emotional and Adam helped her through the conversation.

Her son immediately asked whether she was going to die. When Jessica reassured him she wasn’t, he appeared to accept the answer and went off to play cards with his younger stepbrother.

It wasn’t until the following day that the reality seemed to sink in.

‘Yeah, Mum, you told me you have breast cancer,’ he said when Jessica reminded him of their conversation.

‘Wait a minute.’

He ran down the hallway crying, and Jessica followed him and held him.

Jessica and Adam decided to keep the boys involved rather than leave them to make sense of the changes on their own. They helped with her fertility injections, visited her in hospital, and later joined her at Breast Cancer Network Australia events.

Treatment ended, but the effects have continued 

Nearly three years on, Jessica’s life remains shaped by what happened.

She has since had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed because of the risk associated with her BRCA2 mutation and continues to take hormone therapy.

The treatment has left her dealing with fatigue, brain fog, aches and pains, as well as the physical and emotional effects of entering menopause at a young age.

She has also developed osteopenia in her lumbar spine and left hip. The day before speaking about her experience, she underwent an MRI because of persistent back pain.

Although the most intensive stages of treatment are behind her, the appointments, checks and fear that something else could be wrong have continued.

‘I don’t feel like myself,’ she said.

‘I love to make jokes, and I always will, and I’ll always put a light on it. I have a bit of dark humour as my way of coping.

‘But I know right now that I’m not the best mum or the best partner. I’m exhausted, I’m in pain, I’m trying to work.’

At the same time, Jessica has pushed herself to finish her nursing degree.

‘I have all these appointments still, and checks and scares, and you can’t help but have it in your mind, and going through menopause and everything at such a young age,’ she said.

‘I’m 36, and I’m osteopenic in my lumbar and my left hip, and finishing my nursing degree, and then trying to have the strength to do that because I don’t want that to go to waste either.’

Using her experience to spread awareness

During chemotherapy, Jessica became involved with Breast Cancer Network Australia and was selected as one of the Pink Ladies for the 2024 Pink Lady Match at the MCG.

She has since become a community ambassador, using her experience to support others affected by breast cancer and describing it as turning her ‘pain for purpose and power for others’. 

Jessica often reflects on the 13 months between her first breast screen and finding the lump in the shower. 

‘I was lucky enough to find it when it hadn’t spread. It was early breast cancer, stage two, but it definitely makes you think that within those 13 months, if it had been any longer and I didn’t feel that lump, what may have been,’ she said.

After years of surgery, treatment and learning to live in a body that still doesn’t feel entirely like her own, Jessica wants other people to become familiar with theirs.

‘Know yourself, feel yourself, get to know your normal,’ Jessica said.

‘Everybody can be lumpy and bumpy at different stages, but it can be such a taboo thing as well, feeling your breasts, or having it out there, or talking about it.

‘The more that we’re open about it and the more that we can express ourselves with it, the chances of women and even men catching it early, rather than when it’s much later on.’

Breast Cancer Network Australia helps ensure that all Australians who are affected by breast cancer receive the very best care, treatment and support.

Together with Tetley, BCNA has launched a new national initiative called The Uncomfortable Cup to encourage Australians to have difficult but necessary conversations about breast cancer.

Tetley is raising funds to support the BCNA through a limited-edition pink pack of Tetley Tea Cup 100s. Five cents for every pack sold will be donated to BCNA. Learn more and donate at www.tetley.com.au/theuncomfortablecup/