A TALE OF A BREAST CANCER SURVIVOR
SURVIVING cancer can seem like an impossible dream to someone who has just been diagnosed, or who is in the middle of treatment.
When Chipo Mlambo was first diagnosed with cancer she could not believe it.
She narrated to H-Metro how she felt and what she went through in 2021 after being diagnosed.
She said, as of now, the scans which have been conducted show that she does not have cancer anymore.
“I had pain in my arm but I never suspected that I could have breast cancer,” she said.
“For one-and-a-half years, I was going back and forth to different doctors and I would get the strongest painkillers but none of them helped.
“When we went into the first Covid19 lockdown in 2020 that is when I finally realised that the pain I was feeling had nothing to do with the heavy lifting I was doing at work but could be something serious.”
She said could feel a lump in her breast but she never once suspected cancer.
A doctor she visited during the lockdown misdiagnosed her and put her on hormonal imbalance treatment medication. Mlambo said this made her condition worse as the lump actually grew in size and she could see a difference on her breast, there were dimples and it had discoloured.
The second doctor she visited advised her to get checked for breast cancer and a biopsy confirmed that she had the disease.
“When I was told that I had cancer, I really did not take it well,” she said.
“I felt as if the world was coming to an end and I was dying, I got counselling from my friends, my children and hospital staff and other patients that I met at the hospital.
“I was crying from the time I was diagnosed, through my mastectomy until I started chemotherapy when I met other patients with stories to tell. I realised that I am a survivor not a victim.”
When she finished her chemotherapy sessions, she could not afford the radiotherapy treatment needed after that because only private facilities were offering it.
“The radiotherapy that I had to go for was going for US$8 000 in Zimbabwe and it was too expensive so we managed to get funds and I travelled to Namibia for radiotherapy,” she said.
“As cancer patients, we face a challenge with the funds because cancer treatment is expensive but one thing for sure is that early detection saves lives.”
In Zimbabwe, the National Cancer Registry 2018 annual report shows that breast cancer is the second most common cancer, after cervical cancer, affecting women and accounts for eight percent of all cases.