Breast cancer patients spread awareness during October and celebrate modern advancements toward a cure.
The month of October, known as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, has many charity movements to aid cure funding. Charities that accept donations include the American Cancer Society, Living Beyond Breast Cancer, and Young Survivor Coalition. Breast cancer awareness month is important for breast cancer survivors as it gets out their stories and helps financially incapable carriers.
“You are thrown underwater. The words ‘You have cancer’ become a dark sea that tows you down, down, down, until friends or family or a kind doctor or nurse pulls you up for air,” Johanna, a blogger from pinkstinks.blog, said. “At the surface, you gasp for the stage and grade of it, you gasp for the treatment plan. There is no time to float. Then despair might hit, and you’re back under, to be revived, again and again, bit by lung-filled bit, as the days and appointments pass.”
Johanna explains her initial feelings when first told about her diagnosis. Time taken by cancer left none for relaxation.
“At some point, the shock fades and the routines of scheduled chemotherapy, or daily radiation, or surgery recovery and physical therapy coat life in a sense of calm,” Johanna said. “ I’m doing something, you might think. We’re taking care of it. Trust the doctors to see a way forward. Trust the nurses to inject the drugs slowly, with such care.”
Johanna speaks about how the process becomes daily life and how she learned to trust the process. However, she does not mention the financial pain that is associated with cancer.
“My body is riddled with chronic pain along with neuropathy,” Meghan Claire Chase, a breast cancer blogger from warriormegsie.com, said. “I do meet the requirements to apply for disability but won’t because I can’t afford to live on such a low monthly income and need health insurance. Surviving is expensive. I have no choice but to continue working full-time because of continuous medical bills, the cost of living in a major city, and the need for health insurance. It wears on me greatly to never get the rest my body so desperately needs.”
Paying for constant hospital visits, tests, and screening weighs heavily on breast cancer survivors. Even if they manage to live through the pain and emotional trauma that comes with cancer, they will most likely never live past the debt it puts them in.
