Arles Pink October: the importance of breast self-examination

The good news was announced last Tuesday during the inauguration of the new medical imaging platform. A mammograph will be installed at the Joseph-Imbert hospital center in Arles during the year 2025.I just learned about it, it’s great. I am followed in Nîmes. The day the diagnosis came, things happened in my head. I was alone at the wheel, the outcome of this trip could have been dramatic“, remembers Carine, a 50-year-old from Saint-Martin.

Accompanied by her daughters, Loline 20 years old and Julie 14 years old, she participated in the first of three days of awareness and fight against breast cancer organized by the Arles hospital. The meeting was this Saturday at the Jules César hotel. “Todayindicates Carine, I encourage my daughters to be very vigilant, to listen to their bodies. Cancer has never been a taboo, we have always talked about it together.”

Self-palpation: “Without knowing if I was doing it right“

“Pink October, I wasn’t interested in it before“, Carine concedes. “We always think it only happens to others“, her younger sister intervenes. But there was this pain on one breast a few years ago. “It’s “thanks” to her that I followed regular check-ups“, continues the fifty-year-old who practiced self-examination intermittently”and without knowing if I was doing it right“. A gesture that the three Saint-Martin residents, among other interested or curious people diverted from their shopping on the market, were able to (re)discover on the stand run by the students of the Nursing and caregiver training institutes.By regularly examining their breasts, women – of all ages, Editor’s note – can themselves detect an anomaly, a deformation on a nipple, discharge, redness, a lump, rough skin, etc.“, explains Régis Bernard, director of IFSI and IFSA.

Detected early, breast cancer is cured in nine out of ten cases. And yet, according to figures published last April by Public health Franceonly 48.2% of the women concerned participated in the organized breast cancer screening program. Across the Pays d’Arles, one in four women are screened, according to figures from Sylvia Breton, director of Arles hospital, “one in eight in the localities“, adds Régis Bernard.

Conferences, dance shows from the Arles au corps company, free concert, tattoo workshop, presentation of breast and hair prostheses were on the program for this awareness day at the Jules César hotel. The Capilem salon also organized a hair drive to benefit Fake Hair Don’t Care. This association collects hair donations and created wigs to make them more accessible to people with cancer. Loline and Julie were among the donors.