11-Year-Old Becomes Youngest Breast Cancer Survivor

When Hannah Powell-Auslam went to the doctor to get a lump in her breast checked, the first thing doctors said was, “Cancer should be the furthest thing from your mind.” This was not surprising news–Hannah was only ten years-old.

But a biopsy revealed the unthinkable: Hannah had a malignant tumor. While it’s technically possible for anyone with breast tissue to get breast cancer, the chances of a 10-year-old being stricken with the disease are less than one in a million.

Good Morning America has been following her story, and they checked in with her again yesterday morning. After months of debilitating treatments, including a mastectomy and chemotherapy, tests recently showed that Hannah’s cancer was no longer detectable. The sweetly soft-spoken sixth grader, who’s now 11, talked about her initial reluctance to tell her parents about the itchy lump in her breast–an understandably embarrassing prospect for a 10-year-old.

Fortunately, she braved the discomfort and her mother was smart enough to bring her to a doctor immediately. Hannah’s father discussed the unimaginable difficulty of telling Hannah that she had cancer. “We wanted to be able to answer all her questions,” he said. So they spent several days doing research before they broke the news to Hannah. But no amount of research could have prepared them for the pain of hearing their daughter ask, “Am I going to die?”

Hannah’s doctors themselves were at a loss as to Hannah’s prognosis. “All of our data is based on a totally different age group,” one of the doctors said. But now that Hannah is back to playing softball and hanging out with her friends, we have one story that shows the prognosis can be very good.

Photo: fightpink.org

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Tags: breast cancer, cancer, children, hannah powell-auslam, kids, survivor, youngest breast cancer case