Breast Cancer: Let's Talk About It! An Interview with Emilie Daudin (The Brunette)
For this new interview, we sat down with Emilie Daudin, a 33-year-old mother of two. In June 2007, she launched her fashion and beauty blog, *The Brunette*, and co-created the podcasts *Pow(Her)* and *Pow(Her)Mama* with her business partner, Emilie le Guiniec.
A few months after giving birth to her second child, she discovered she had an aggressive form of breast cancer known as triple-negative breast cancer.
She will then launch “Triple Negative,” her podcast about triple-negative breast cancer.
1. What is the main message you want to convey through your podcast?
I want to focus on prevention. And I want to demystify the word “cancer”—a word that’s terribly frightening and one that people don’t associate with a 33-year-old new mother with no family history of the disease...
Triple-negative breast cancer primarily affects women under the age of 40—women in their twenties, new mothers, and pregnant women.
2. Can you explain how this type of cancer is different from others?
Triple-negative breast cancer primarily affects women under 40—women in their twenties, new mothers, and even pregnant women! It’s very aggressive, and because it lacks known markers on the surface of the cells, it may not respond to treatment... It’s a cancer that’s still shrouded in mystery and has a high recurrence rate... You can be in remission and still develop metastases. In short, for this cancer, remission is considered to have been achieved after 5 years, and complete remission after 10 years!
3. What advice would you give to people who are caring for someone with cancer?
Be there for them, listen, tell them you’ll be there no matter what happens… but don’t downplay the cancer just because it’s “responding well to treatment.” Sure, many people recover, but not everyone! And the road to remission is long—it involves chemotherapy, surgery, radiation therapy, and sometimes oral chemotherapy… It’s grueling! Our bodies change, and so do our moods… So be there for them, whether through a text, a phone call, or little gestures of kindness that always make them happy…
Be there for them, listen, tell them you'll be there no matter what... but don't downplay the cancer just because it's "responding well to treatment."
4. How can we support the cause and help those who are sick?
We need to raise awareness about triple-negative breast cancer among as many people as possible. There are still healthcare professionals who think that breast cancer is easily treatable, that it affects people around age 50, and so on... Unfortunately, that’s not the case with triple-negative breast cancer! We need to advance research and ensure that we can explore every possible treatment option here in France, so we no longer have to set up fundraising campaigns abroad to pay for treatment... We’re eagerly awaiting the arrival of Trodelvy in France—the first innovation in 15 years for triple-negative breast cancer—and, I hope, the arrival of immunotherapy as a treatment option...
