The life of Perez session turned 180 degrees in May 2021. After several appointments and medical exams, this 35-year-old woman from Bilbao received the diagnosis explaining the pain he has felt in his chest for months: breast cancer. It was then that she began a long journey of treatment in which she also personally evolved and, in a sense, she rediscovered herself. In the World Breast Cancer Day We told her about the taboos surrounding this disease and how she tries to break them using social networks.
The key, early diagnosis
It doesn’t always manifest through lumps, and not all lumps are cancer, but that’s how the Saioa case started. One was found in her chest in August 2020 and, taking advantage of a vacation in Bilbao – she lives in Switzerland – she went to the doctor. Correct diagnosis was delayed for months from a negligence: “I did a biopsy but it was badly done, it had blood in the sample and was invalid. Instead of informing me that it was badly done, they told me to have a checkup a year later. “
The months passed and the pain in the chest continued, then a new medical examination was carried out in Genevacity where he lives: “I had to wait a month to go. I wanted a second opinion. The gynecologist saw the images of the Bilbao echo and told me that everything looked normal. I insisted that they do a biopsy and I found the cancer.
What happens after a cancer diagnosis?
From the first moment after the diagnosis, Saioa was clear that he wanted to inform society of everything that involves crossing this disease: “Before I had it I knew little and not everything I knew was correct”. He insists that there is a lot of work to be done and misconceptions must be broken: “I was going to have that cancer that they say “good” and that I just needed surgery, radiotherapy and pills “. Analysis of the tumor revealed a very high burden of HER2, a protein associated with a high risk of developing metastases: “The treatments I have completed are surgery, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiotherapy and I am now on hormone therapy, which will last 7 to 10 years.”
Breast cancer, she explains, is a very emotional cancer that is lived with a lot of loneliness: “The whole world is on top of you during chemotherapy, because that’s what we know today that you have cancer, that they give you chemo and you go bald. But, once the “chemo” is over, everyone leaves, but the treatments continue and there may be side effects. “
#RevientaElRosa and #LazoBocAbajo
A disease can be transmitted in many ways and all are respectable, but Saioa wanted to share her experience to try to generate a change in the outlook many people have of cancer.
It does this through an Instagram account, @elcasorosa. That’s where he unveiled a video What have you done along with 8 other women affected in the who say that, behind the pink bow, there is a lot to change and many taboos to break: “Pink represents a bow and we will not change it because, thanks to that color, it does an awareness work “, she admits,” but it is linked to ‘pinkwashing’, there are companies that use this color to sell products to women but they do not raise awareness on breast cancer or allocate money for research “.
