By: Kinsey I don’t remember the first time my mom had a lumpectomy, because I was only 6 weeks old. It’s so hard to wrap my head around that because she was only 5 years older than I am right now. She was only 20 years old and had a brand new baby. Can anyone really wrap their head around…
Sometimes circumstances call for you to have a conversation you NEVER wanted to have, and truthfully, if everyone treated everyone else they way they would like to be treated, these types of conversation would never come up. When we set out on creating a website to tell our truths surrounding our experiences, we never envisioned other women wanting to use…
By: Beatrice Compagnon On learning to live with a body you didn’t choose. “Don’t worry, it is just a little bit of cancer. We will get you better in no time.” These weren’t the words I expected to hear on my 37th birthday. Ok, it’s not invasive, stage zero — that should be easy to fix, right? No chemo,…
Do you know the parable “The Tale of Two Wolves?” A grandfather is talking with his granddaughter. He tells her there are two wolves inside each of us which are always at war with each other. One of them is a good wolf, representing things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, representing things like greed,…
Meet Emma. A Sheffield based blogger with a penchant for gin and craft beer, travelling, snowboarding, sailing and slowing doing up her house. She’s aggressively dog friendly, and also had a brush with Breast Cancer. My fear about this cancer recurrence sneaks up on me, between my flippant Instagram posts and jokes with Drs about replacing my Sternum with Bluetooth…
By: Jenni Rai, PT, CLT When I initially began working with women who had breast cancer, I was often the first person to mention “lymphedema” to them. This was in 2005, and at the time we Physical Therapists and Certified Lymphedema Therapists (at least the ones I worked with) perceived breast surgeons to find lymphedema insulting. A sort of, “I…
By Lora Harvey As all the air left my lungs, time stood still on June 15, 2017. And I seemingly forgot how to breathe. Only when my respiratory system took over again did I inhale.In that split second, my life began dismantling. Microscopic cracks at first, but those compound and quickly become unnegotiable divides. I was never the girl that…
Mia’s bilateral mastectomy was in 2007, and mine was in 2010. Numerous times since then, we’ve both had people say to us, “Can’t you just get over it?”, and other similar comments. We know there are women both in treatment and post-treatment that hear these same words every single day. And we also know words like that can cause a…
One can’t imagine the stigma, loneliness, pain and sometimes embarrassment that comes with cutting off your breasts. Women are “known” for their breasts – after all that’s what makes a woman beautiful and voluptuous, right?! So losing them can be a major blow to one’s heart and soul. There isn’t much, if any, information out there on how to heal…
A mastectomy, either single or double, is a common treatment for women with breast cancer. I asked some of my friends to contribute to the conversation, and this is the information that many from the breast community wish they had known. 1. I wish I had taken pictures documenting procedure and recovery, and journaled. There’s so much I have forgotten!…
