October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so mediator and life coach Jacobien shares her personal experiences with the harsh realities of breast cancer treatment.
Of course, it's 'just hair.' Of course, it's all for a good cause. Of course, it could always be worse.
In addition to endless exams where you're constantly undressing.
Read also Jacobien's previous blog: ‘Angels‘
Mammography stands where you stand exposed, breasts dangling in front of nurses, cheeks burning with embarrassment as they adjust them into position.
Claustrophobic scanners that inject radioactive tracers until you feel like you're glowing. Machines designed to flatten your breasts to a centimeter thick, stretching the process out interminably.
The liters of blood drawn painfully from elusive veins after countless failed attempts.
A collapsed lung during port-a-cath placement—a rare 1% complication.
The agonizing waits between tests and results. Sleepless nights. Chemo side effects: nausea, exhaustion, sadness, irritability, metallic taste, nosebleeds, neuropathy, aching joints, dry skin, nails peeling painfully, bleeding gums, weight gain, sun-sensitive skin, flushed face, and baldness. Losing your breasts. The drains.
The sci-fi radiation sessions: marked with crosses and lines across your body, wearing odd goggles with a snorkel-like tube in your mouth clamped to your nose, staring at a monitor, holding your breath for 21 seconds as the machine whirs around you, beaming rays into your body. Chemo brain fog that erases your memory and makes reading impossible. All for a good cause.
Besides all this, you're told to stay positive, keep your chin up, not make a big deal of it, let it go. Kids are resilient, after all. Hair is just hair. But baldness is only one cargo in the massive freighter called 'Cancer.' All for a good cause!
2017 was a tough year for mediator and life coach Jacobien. Amid a labor dispute, she faced a breast cancer diagnosis. Now, as the treatment fog lifts, she blogs about life with cancer, motherhood, and navigating what comes next.
Read more at By-bien.nl and follow her on Instagram at Biencoacht.
