The word cancer continues to give chills, fear, anguish…n February 4, cancer has its day on the calendar to make this disease visible and remember what is necessary for research.
There are 200 different types of cancer. In Spain, around 34,088 new breast cancers are diagnosed in 2020 according to the European Cancer Information System (ECIS), which represents 30% of cancers diagnosed in women. One of the people who has suffered is Montse Liñares.
SELF-EMPLOYED AND WITH BREAST CANCER
Montse is 57 years old and two years ago during a routine check-up she received the news: she had breast cancer: “I went to do the mammogram, the one you do for the Xunta, and they call me at work to repeat the tests… that’s when I realized there was something wrong“. She appreciates the professional and personal treatment: “Very affectionate, in a day or two I had all the tests and then… they operated on you.” She also recalls the accompaniment of the association: “Marcos (the AECC psychologist at the Hospital Clínico de Santiago) is a professional like the top of a pine, let no one have a hard time, he helps us all”. People who are not afraid to make a call: “Asking for help is not for cowards, it’s for the brave”
They had to operate on her and she was left with sequelae in one of her arms, which forced him to go to therapy and exercise. Montse is very grateful to theAECC (Spanish Association Against Cancer). This organization provided him with support, company, psychological service and also classes to recover physically. The covid has not prevented him from continuing with this activity, but now he does it through the Zoom platform, to avoid contagion.
Apart from the illness, he had another problem, the expenses derived from not being able to work regularly. She is self-employed and has a costume jewelry and traditional costume business. After being diagnosed with breast cancer, her daughter has had to take over the reins of the store. She has now overcome the disease, but is still on sick leave due to depression: “At the moment when you are with cancer, you are fighting and you want to live. When you go through it… the downturn comes, very big. I am now on sick leave because of depression, it’s hard to get out of it.
Montse tells us about the economic difficulties for self-employed people. Your benefit? 600 euros per month. “It’s unfair, we should receive the same as a normal employee… if you have to pay rent, the car, the mortgage, eat… at such a bad time in your life, you are suffering a lot and it doesn’t help you to think How are you going to pay for everything?
Fortunately, her husband has a job and more money comes into the house, otherwise it would not be possible to maintain a decent life.
Montse wanted to take advantage of this day to ask that the self-employed have the same rights as employees. And more, if possible, in cases of long illness.
