“I was too young to get cancer. There was no way. I was fit and healthy, currently in the best shape of my life training for a trip to Everest basecamp. I prepared my chemo bag. I was ready for this. But when I walked into the hospital and saw all the elderly ladies around me wearing head scarves, I instantly felt a fear I could not describe.”
‘I never thought I’d be calling my husband to inform him ‘it’s cancer.’ I sat on the phone in utter shock.’: 28-year-old woman diagnosed with breast cancer after noticing ‘blood stains in bra’
‘I sat in the waiting room, eager for my big sigh of relief. It didn’t come. Like many of us, I thought I had all the time in the world. Then, I received the blow most of us fear. My heart sank.’
“I didn’t have the symptoms or risk factors. Everyone said, ‘It’s probably nothing.’ I walked up to my husband, tears in my eyes, in total shock. I worried I’d never get to see my children grow up. The fear of the unknown started taking over.”
‘As painful as this picture is for me to see, it hurts even more this could become ANY ONE OF YOU. I know I’m a lucky one.’
“Why do I show you my face? Why do I show you my pain? Why do I reveal these heart-breaking scars? I’ll tell you why.”
‘I wore red lipstick during my mastectomy. The nurses joked I looked ‘too good’ for somebody having surgery. I had a huge party the night before. I bought a wig to look like Britney Spears!’
“We can all become overwhelmed with the negativity in the world. From my experience during cancer I can tell you there is so much good. My support even came from strangers.”
‘But you don’t look sick.’ My mom said, ‘There is no way, the chances are so low, it would be very rare.’ She was right. The risk is less than one percent, but I fell into that percentage.’
“They get sad and say, ‘but you’re so young!’ You never truly know what people are going through. I had family members tell me, ‘We’re sorry for not visiting, but it was too hard to see you go through this.’ Or that seeing me would make it ‘all too real.’ It is real.”
