Experiences Of Young Cancer Survivors - Page 2

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During breast cancer awareness month, it is of course very important to talk about new research on the disease, and important preventative measures. The major point of this month, though blunt and hard to swallow, is to raise awareness to do what we can to reduce the number of deaths due to breast cancer. There are some incredible women willing to tell their story, and a lot of medical professionals dedicated to the cause. But there is another aspect of breast cancer we should focus on this month: the survivors. Once a woman is a breast cancer survivor, that is forever a part of her identity. There are experiences survivors understand that women who have never had to face breast cancer simply cannot. And within that group of women, there is an even smaller group: young breast cancer survivors. As uncommon as breast cancer is in women under thirty, I actually have two friends who fall into that category. This is what they’ve shared with me about being a young breast cancer survivor.

Gettyimages.com/A doctor of African descent is talking to her female patient. The doctor is touching the patient’s arm to make her feel better.

Your doctor may be emotional

It is never easy for a doctor to tell a patient she has breast cancer, but it is especially difficult for a doctor to tell a young patient this. That is simply because they don’t have much if any practice—it may have never come up before in that doctor’s career. Both of my friends said their doctors became emotional giving them the diagnosis.

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You need to decide on children, fast

My friends were at various life stages when they got the diagnosis—one married, and one single, not even dating. But neither of them had decided if they ever wanted kids, and then they had to decide quickly. Chemotherapy essentially wipes out a woman’s ability to conceive later so, they had to decide if they wanted to freeze their eggs before undergoing it.

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If you want them, it will cost you

One decided to freeze her eggs because she could—she had the financial resources. There is a lot to learn about freezing one’s eggs but one thing you learn quickly is that it is very expensive. Some women cannot afford to do it, meaning cancer takes away the possibility of motherhood for them.

Gettyimages.com/Young woman looking out of the window. Los Angeles, America. July 2017

You can’t see the future

When you’re young, you have this illusion of the future—you think it’s guaranteed. Both of my survivor friends said that when they got their diagnosis, they realized how silly it ever was to assume the future was guaranteed. And they realized how much of their time they spent thinking about the future before, and not being in the present.

Gettyimages.com/A woman of African descent and her doctor are indoors in a medical clinic. They are sitting and talking about the woman’s health problems.

Every other problem becomes futile

A gossipy friend, an overly critical boss, a greedy landlord—these are issues that may have consumed their minds before their diagnosis. Those problems just…go away. They would consider themselves lucky if those were their only problems.

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Your weight balloons

Chemotherapy can make women crave junk food and put on a substantial amount of weight. This is never easy at any age but it can be especially hard for young women who are still struggling with body image issues before their diagnosis. Typically, older women had already given up the vain idea of the “perfect body.”

Gettyimages.com/Young African woman looking at the mirror with lips together

But vanity feels small

The emotional pain of the weight gain is strong at first but eventually subsides. This is simply because vanity feels futile when one’s life is at stake. To put it simply, one friend told me she was happy to be chubby and alive, as opposed to the alternative.

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It puts your savings into perspective

In your late twenties, you may have put aside a few thousand dollars, and that’s something you’re proud of. You think of using it for a vacation or a nicer apartment. But when my friends began to witness bills for cancer treatment—hundreds of thousands of dollars—their ideas around money changed. They were very grateful to have health insurance since the majority of those bills wouldn’t fall on them. But, they actually wish they’d had more fun in the past, and maybe had less savings, because it turns out those savings couldn’t handle the most important expense of their lives anyways.

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Your parents feel that they’ve failed

Being a parent watching your child deal with cancer is perhaps one of the most unnatural order of things that could ever occur. Parents aren’t supposed to watch their child be ill, and even face the threat of death.

Gettyimages.com/A senior African-American woman in her 70s sitting at a table indoors, drinking coffee, looking out the window with a serious expression.

Your mother, in particular

While having a child with breast cancer is devastating for both parents, my friends said it was particularly trying on their mothers, who couldn’t help but feel it was somehow their fault—did they miss something in their family’s medical history?

Gettyimages.com/Pensive young african office worker sitting on desk and using computer. Wears casual clothes, curly hair. Windows, shelves with folders, office chair on background.

Your career comes to a screeching halt

In your late twenties, you’re just thinking about grinding and getting ahead in your career. You feel bad if you miss one networking event. But if you’re diagnosed with breast cancer, your career comes to a screeching halt. You won’t just miss one event—you may miss months or years worth. But suddenly, career aspirations feel vain anyways.

Tired young woman working at the office. Hands on head, eyes closed. As background desk and seat, bike and guitar, shelfs with boxes and folders, and tall windows,

You may not have been established yet

It was very hard on my both of my friends to take so much time off work because they weren’t established in their fields yet. Very few people under the age of 30 are. When they returned to work, it almost felt like they had to start over.

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Peers are few and far between

Because statistically there are just fewer young women with breast cancer across the country, when you shrink that down into each city, and then into each borough’s support group, my friends didn’t really find women their age in support groups. So, their experiences were very different from most of the other individuals in the groups.

Gettyimages.com/Woman holding tablet in front of different parts of the body. It is possible to purchase hand made coloured illustrations of the body parts in “x-ray” style, created to fit the screen the images from this shoot.

Any breast insecurities vanish

Whatever their concerns were about their breasts before—too big, too small, too droopy, weird shape—those all went away. They just wanted their breasts not to have cancer. A cancer-free breast would be perfect, however it looked.

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Being a young survivor can be a gift

My friends would never wish breast cancer on anyone and if they could go back in time and somehow not go through it, they would. Of course. But they are where they are now and they have both said that, in a way, getting breast cancer early was a gift. The true gift was survival. They have a tremendous gratitude for life now and, since they’re young, they should have plenty of years ahead of them to enjoy that feeling. They won’t live with regrets, and they’re happy to have that outlook now rather than later.