Former Liberal MLA and current Painaustralia CEO Giulia Jones says it was on only the slightest of inklings that she went for a mammogram that ultimately revealed she has breast cancer and that the disease has spread to her lymph nodes.
The 43-year-old mother-of-six is urging other women who think they are too young to get a mammogram - or who may have have missed a breast screen during the pandemic - to not delay getting one.
She will have surgery - a lumpectomy - next week and likely also follow-up chemotherapy after the breast cancer was discovered last month.
"My youngest daughter had been sitting on my lap and poking me and stuff and it felt just a tiny bit like there might be some bruising .That was it," she said.
"And I went and had a look in the mirror and I saw maybe the skin had just some slight dimpling on it and that was it.
"So I went to have the free breast screen from BreastScreen ACT and it turns out I have a cancer in there. It's amazing. I am still shocked by how little it shows. And how it's so unobvious.
"And it's not small. It's like maybe a disc the size of a mandarin."
Mrs Jones said she had no indication anything was wrong.
"If anything, I've just been a bit tired. And when you have six kids, you're a bit tired a lot of the time," she said.
Her voice reveals the shock but Mrs Jones is remaining upbeat.
"I plan to live a long and happy life," she said.
"I've just been pondering how many other women there are who might have put off their breast screen, maybe during the pandemic, and who might think about going to get one done now.
"It doesn't really hurt. It's not embarrassing. The women who do it, do it all day."
Mrs Jones, who left the Assembly last year after more than a decade to take up the position of CEO of lobby group Painaustralia, has six children aged from five to 17, with her husband Bernard.
"I came home and told the kids and I tried to make a little bit light of it, because it's a heavy thing. I said to my little boys, 'We're going to call the cancer Bruce and we're going to evict it'. So we could have a bit of a laugh, because it could really upset them," she said.
"The McGrath nurses sent me some booklets to go through with the little kids. The older kids understand pretty well what it is."
At the age of 43, Mrs Jones said having a mammogram wasn't top of her mind. But when colleagues in her office said they were getting one, she was encouraged to also go for a screen after she felt the slight bruising in her breast.
"I actually thought I'd got to the stage in life where I wouldn't have to see inside another hospital for another 10 or 20 years," she said.
"I've had my babies. I've had some reconstruction surgery for my body after all those kids. and I've put myself back together and I thought, 'Oh this is my time to just focus on work and teenagers and all the family needs and maybe have a holiday'. But instead I'm going back to hospital."
She was remaining positive about her prognosis, even though it still felt overwhelming at times
"The scary thing is, it's not just a lump, there is some cancer in the lymph. And I always used to think that if cancer has spread into the lymph that it's the end of you. But I think that isn't the case anymore at all," she said.
"And I've had a full PET scan that shows everything in my body that could be cancerous and it's good to note that it's just in that area and it'll be able to be removed."
Mrs Jones said she intended to stay working for Painaustralia which lobbies for better outcomes for the more than 3 million Australians living with chronic pain.
"I love my job and the people I work with and the work that we're doing," she said.
A major project on the horizon was one being launched in September to help women living with chronic pain.
"So that's also really important to do and I don't want to stop doing any of that. So I'll take some time out when I have my surgery and recover and then I'll come back and keep fighting for people who are in chronic pain," she said.
Her main message is that women, especially those aged 40 to 50, don't delay getting a mammogram.
"I'm hoping that by talking about my issue a few more women talk to their colleagues or their families, 'Oh, I should have had my breast screen by now'," she said.
"Because the thing that really strikes me is just how little obvious it was. It was not obvious. It was literally only a light feeling of bruising which I only knew because I was being poked by my children and this ever so slight dimpling on one side.
"I could have easily have missed it."
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