When Chris Hallenga was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, the most advanced form of breast cancer, at age 23, questions swirled in her mind. “Why didn't anyone tell me to get my breasts checked?” Why didn't I know I could get breast cancer at 23? ”
In a 2021 interview with the Guardian, she said that if she didn't know she could get breast cancer at such a young age, there's a strong possibility that others weren't as well. He said it was expensive. For the next 15 years, she educated young people about early detection through her nonprofit CoppaFeel and published her memoir, Glittering a Turd, in 2021.
Copperfeel announced Monday that Harenga died at the age of 38. A spokeswoman for the charity said Harenga died at her home in Cornwall, England, and the cause of her death was breast cancer.
“Surviving wasn't enough,” she said during her 2021 public tour. “I don't just want to survive, I want to be able to look at my life and say, 'I'm glad I'm still here.'” And I'm getting the most of what I want out of life. ”
According to the London Times, Kristen Hallenga was born on November 11, 1985 in the small northern German town of Norden to a German father and British mother, both of whom were teachers. When she was nine years old, she moved to Daventry in central England with her mother Jane Hallenga. her twin sister, Maren Harenga; and their sister Maike Hallenga, all three survive. Her father, Rainer Hallenga, died of a heart attack when she was 20 years old.
Harenga first felt a lump in 2009, when she was working at a travel agency in Beijing and teaching on the side. While traveling back to her home in the Midlands of central England, Harenga visited her family physician. She told the Guardian that her doctor blamed the lump on hormonal changes caused by birth control pills.
However, the lump became more painful and started producing bloody discharge. Another internist gave her a diagnosis similar to her first one: hormones and pills. But Harenga didn't know what was considered normal, so he had nothing to judge.
“I never touched my breasts. I didn't know anything about breasts,” Harenga said in 2021.
But Harenga's mother, who herself had breast cancer when she was young, insisted that her daughter get a referral to a breast clinic. At the time her diagnosis was made, eight months after she found the lump, Harenga's diagnosis was terminal. She also had metastases in her spine.
After undergoing aggressive chemotherapy, including a mastectomy and hormone therapy, tests in 2011 revealed the cancer had spread to her liver, she later told HuffPost. A year later, her doctors discovered that the cancer had spread to her brain, and she underwent intensive radiation therapy to remove the tumor.
However, she continued to work through her illness. She wrote about her cancer diagnosis and her advocacy work in columns for her local newspapers, the Northampton Chronicle and Echo and The Sun. But it was her work with CoppaFeel that reached her target audience, young people.
The organization sends thousands of breast self-examination reminders via text message, organizes groups of women known as Bouvets to go to schools and talk about their experiences with breast cancer at a young age, and incorporates cancer awareness into educational curricula. contributed to increasing the In the UK, what appears to be the first nipple was shown in a daytime TV ad encouraging people to know about their breasts.
All of this was done in the hope that others could avoid a diagnosis like the one Harenga experienced.
“Cancer often comes with a set of words: survivor, thriver, warrior. If that word helps you get through the day, if it helps you gain perspective. , it's great that someone wants to put their presence behind that word,'' she said. Harenga said when her memoir was published. “But for me, I couldn't really relate to that. Because I mean, what's the point of surviving if you're not happy to be alive?”
In 2017, Ms Hallenga stepped down as chief executive of Copperfeel and moved to Cornwall to spend more time with her sister Maren. In June last year, she was buried alive at Truro Cathedral in Cornwall. Her dress code was “YODO,'' meaning you only die once. Dawn French, who played the village priest in the BBC sitcom The Vicar of Dibley, led the celebration of life.
“I have never felt so much love,” Harenga wrote on Instagram after the event. “I have never felt so much joy. I have never felt so close to mortality. I have never felt so alive.”