Bel Oliver, 63 years old, first she was a patient, then a user of Auba Mallorca and she has been president for 15 years. «It is not an association that gives financial aid per se, but support. Because what happens with chemotherapy is only understood by those who have experienced it. She Bel was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 46 years old. At that time she worked at the Col·legi Oficial de Biòlegs de Balears «and they did not renew me. I sank into misery.” She had to have a bilateral mastectomy but the whole process has been 16 years.
“Cancer has taught me to be very grateful for things”, says Bel Oliver, who as president gets involved “at any time of the day” with the associated women. Her relationship with the entity did not come as a patient, but after all her journey through the disease. «I was looking for a physiotherapist and they recommended Auba Mallorca. At the first moment I already felt that it was my home ».
Carme Mas has been a member of the association’s board of directors for six years. In 2017 she was diagnosed with breast cancer but a mastectomy was not necessary. «When I finished the chemo, and before the tumor operationMy two daughters encouraged me to go to the entity on a Wednesday because they were having a meeting. But I wasn’t ready until I went by myself and from there I continued”, she recalls.
As a patient that Carme has been, and now a member of Auba Mallorca, one of the things that women value most is “not being alone in this process. Here you live things that only we know, family members or doctors are not told. She also explains that when a patient is cured “we all congratulate each other and celebrate with a cake or something to share.”
Charity market
The Auba Mallorca association has prepared a solidarity market this Saturday, February 25, at Hostal Pons, in Palma. The clothes have been entirely donated by the Suite 13 Lab store and all the money will go to the association.
The president, Bel Oliver, recalls that money is scarce, since they start from the membership fees to pay for the workshops, reiki or pilates classes and talks they do during the week. In this case, if the entity has liquidity, they can help women who need it to pay for themselves, for example, a wig that amounts to 400 euros in some cases.
«A cancer cuts your life, and that is when you realize that life flies. That is why we do many workshops on managing emotions to carry out well, above all, the revisions that touch you throughout your life, “says Bel Oliver, and clarifies that” the image we have is not, far from it, defeatist; here there are young and old who have left or are patients. And they continue if they want to help other women who enter ».
