Today, I’m a bit angry. I’ve found myself angry throughout this journey but have been able to make the best of everything, despite the reality of my situation. Today, however, I’m mad. Yesterday, I found out that I am still, in fact, doing chemo and the realization tore me apart. I started thinking about how much this disease has affected, not only me, but also so many other women. This thought has bothered me from the very beginning of all this. I always resort to asking myself two things, “Why?” and “What?”. And no, I don’t mean “why me?”. In fact, that’s the least of my concerns. This disease has turned into a pandemic in and of itself. What the hell is going on and why? Even though deaths related to breast cancer are said to be decreasing, it seems like the number of new cases are increasing just the same.

Not only that, but more and more young women are being diagnosed every single day. If this doesn’t bother you, it should. Since screening for breast cancer in younger patients is so seldom and essentially, unavailable, a lot of the warning signs go unnoticed and then, untreated. I know in my personal experience, before I was finally able to get some sort of diagnostic done, I was told it was “nothing” and I was “too young” to get breast cancer, regardless of the golf-ball sized tumor growing inside my chest. I was told many things. But the main thing I learned was that if you have no family history or don’t carry the BRCA gene, you will be ignored by the health care industry. The main excuse being younger patients have breasts that are much more dense, making it harder for mammograms to detect signs of disease. Which, I find kind of odd considering when I finally had mine, you could see the tumor clear as day. Not only that, but there are other tools that can be used to detect questionable masses. Breast ultrasounds being one of them.

There are tons of statistics out there related to breast cancer. One of those saying that breast cancer has become the most common cancer globally as of 2021, accounting for 12% of all new annual cancer cases worldwide (breastcancer.org). Only 2% of those cases are said to be genetic. And while I can’t find the exact statistics on age, it is said that the staging of disease is worse in younger patients at the time of diagnosis, than in older patients. Of course, this makes sense to me because, like I said, most of these cases go unnoticed due to poor judgement called by doctors. The people who are supposed to make you well and be able to recognize any abnormalities that could lead to disease. This is not okay! Obviously, there is something going on to cause such a widespread illness. It’s no longer an anomaly, but a serious problem for our future generations. Shouldn’t the healthcare industry find importance in ensuring that every woman be given the same precautionary screening and care, in order to prevent such cancers? From what I’ve gathered, it all boils down to insurance. Which makes me even more angry. This shouldn’t be something that all depends on what insurance companies want, or really, don’t want. That is truly unbelievable. These should be rights given to every woman, to ensure a happy, healthy life. No woman, no matter what race, ethnicity, or age, should have to suffer due to the lack of care that is, more or less, in the hands of these huge corporations.

Speaking of insurance, the amount of money one must spend in order to survive breast cancer and receive treatment is astonishing. As I’m sure anyone can understand, no one is prepared to pay the cost just to survive cancer. According to cnbc.com, the average amount for breast cancer treatment will cost anywhere between $20,000 and $100,000 or more. This is IF the person is using insurance. And in my experience, insurance companies can be very difficult to deal with. Cost will also depend on many other things, such as what type of breast cancer the patient has and what stage it is in. I do understand that there are a lot of ways to get assistance in order to pay these outrageous bills. However, the stress of worrying about funds can wreak havoc on a person’s ability to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I have heard of some women having to take out a second mortgage on their home just to pay for things and to make ends meet. Can you imagine a young, single mother having to deal with such burdens? Well, I can. I see it every day.

Anyway, the reason why I bring up all of these things is because sometimes, I feel defeated by cancer, as I'm sure most can understand. Then I consume myself with everything else about it. It just motivates me to speak up about it and share the truths. This entire topic boggles my mind and leaves me with so many questions. Questions that may not even have answers, which is frustrating. I feel it as my duty to bring awareness to the matter because I know firsthand what it does to people, and how serious it really is. Like I said at the beginning, I was angry after realizing that I am back on chemotherapy again. It seems so simple but to me, it's not. My doctor failed to explain the new treatment I started recently to its entirety and basically sugar coated it. I know she probably didn’t mean to do this. However, doing so has left me unprepared to deal with the side effects of everything. To her credit, it’s not AS bad as the chemo I was on before and I (thankfully) won’t lose my hair again. I’ll just have to find ways to deal with it. I know there have been significant advances made in the healthcare field pertaining to cancer and the treatment of it. Sometimes though, it just feels like were all merely lab rats in some sort of science experiment.

The reason why I share so much of my journey is not to make people feel sorry for me or to scare you. I truly want to raise awareness for this disease. I have had several ladies reach out and tell me how much they appreciate how transparent I am about it all. That means so much to me. If I can make a difference in just one person’s life, then I have succeeded. Were all sisters and brothers in this life and we should ALL be looking out for one another, all the time 😊 Thank you all for reading. If you made it this far, thank you for listening to me! Love you all. Have a great Easter weekend!

Xoxo,

Kels