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# Hope blooms as research grows
- URL: https://www.courier.net.au/hope-blooms-as-research-grows/
- Published: 2026-08-18T14:35:47.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-19T07:17:30.000Z
- Description: A Nairne resident who has lived through breast cancer twice says the stark difference between her two experiences has shown her the importance of scientific research and advances in cancer treatment.
- Author: Ethan Long
- Tags: Community, News

A Nairne resident who has lived through breast cancer twice says the stark difference between her two experiences has shown her the importance of scientific research and advances in cancer treatment.

Jan Davies, pictured, was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 49 in 1999.

It was “overwhelming”, and she was “nervous”, struggling to eat as she came to terms with the diagnosis.

But telling her mother, who had already lost a daughter to ovarian cancer, was one of the “hardest” moments.

Ms Davies said many members of her family had experienced different types of cancer.

Looking back, she believes she could have been diagnosed almost a year earlier when she first noticed symptoms. 

However, she said she wasn’t referred for a mammogram because there was less awareness around breast cancer and routine mammograms were generally offered to women over 50 years of age.

Ms Davies underwent treatment for about a year, including surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy.

She described the process as “cut, burn and poison”.

“But I just believed that I had to do what my health experts suggested, because they are the ones that know it all, I don’t,” she said.

“I just believed what they told me.

“And I am still here today.”

Ms Davies became a Cancer Council volunteer – a role she still holds almost 25 years later – including providing peer support to people newly diagnosed with cancer.

“I want to help,” Ms Davies said.

“And I want other people to notice.”

She was also involved in a push to lower the age for breast cancer screening to 40.

In 2019, twenty years after her first diagnosis, Ms Davies was diagnosed with breast cancer for a second time, this time in her other breast.

But she said there was a significant difference that time around. 

The cancer was detected through her regular mammogram at an early stage, allowing her to undergo a lumpectomy and hormone therapy rather than the treatment she had experienced during her first diagnosis.

The treatment took about three weeks and she spent about a day and a half in hospital.

Ms Davies said the difference between her two diagnoses demonstrated not only how far breast cancer treatment had come, but why continued research was important across all types of cancer.

“That’s the difference, and that’s what research has done for us,” she said.

Now, Ms Davies is turning her experience into a reason to support cancer research more broadly.

As Daffodil Day approaches its 40th year on Thursday, August 20, Ms Davies will be among the volunteers selling daffodils at Mt Barker Central Shopping Centre to fundraise for the Cancer Council.

“Forty years of Daffodil Days have brought us to today,” she said.

“Research does cost a lot of money. 

“But without the research, there is no cure.”