I was 19 when I dragged myself — half-hearted and unimpressed — to the compulsory Breast Cancer Awareness seminar at Fatima Jinnah Women University in Rawalpindi. I was just a young undergraduate trying to make it through the day. Little did I know, that seminar would save my life, two decades later.

Something about it struck a chord. Amid the dull hum of mandatory attendance, a spark lit inside me. I remember walking out with a silent vow: I will check myself. Regularly. It was the first time I had thought of self-care as an act of survival, not vanity. Over the years, I kept that promise to myself. Anytime I felt a lump or change, I consulted a doctor. It was always dismissed — just a fibroid, just a skin issue. Nothing serious. Until December 2023.

I was 40 years old when I felt a 3cm lump — different this time. Larger. Harder. Less dismissible. Still, I told myself it was probably nothing. I had no family history of breast cancer, so it felt unlikely. But I saw a surgeon at the hospital where I was working at the time. She suggested a mammogram, and after it was done, the radiologist looked me in the eye and said: “Don’t leave this without a biopsy.”

The wait for the biopsy result was long and agonising. I had opted to receive the report online, and when I opened the document on a quiet Sunday afternoon, one word hit me like a tidal wave: carcinoma. I didn’t know what “cribriform carcinoma” meant — but I knew what carcinoma was. I was staring at the word “cancer.” My hands trembled. I called my sister WHO’s a doctor, and burst into sobs. My sister tried to reassure me. “It’s a slow-growing cancer,” she said gently. “And breast cancer is one of the most treatable types.” But logic rarely reaches you when you’re drowning in the panic of hearing the word cancer.

Soon, I found myself a