Disability and breast cancer
THIS article will focus on the intersection of disability and breast cancer. This is in recognition of October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
There is a shortage of studies that illuminate the link between disability and breast cancer. However, mastectomy on its own results in physical disabilities. Mastectomy is the removal of tissue from a breast as a way of treating or preventing the disease.
Women who are diagnosed with this type of cancer and undergo mastectomy end up with physical disabilities when they lose their breasts due to treatment.
In addition, some women experience heightened levels of distress as a result of breast cancer diagnosis and fertility challenges that may result from associated treatment. For women who already have disabilities, additional incapacities, including mental disabilities, may arise.
Nonetheless, the belief that all breast cancer diagnoses mean death is fallacious; some patients become survivors but with lasting disabilities across their body systems. But if they are appropriately identified, such disabilities can be addressed through rehabilitation.
Whilst breast cancer ranks as one of the biggest killers of women worldwide, a review of most studies on the disease reveals that such researches assume all women who may have the ailment do not have disabilities.
Most researchers desist from paying attention to women with disabilities who may also have breast cancer or women who acquire disabilities because of the disease.
But recent research has shown that improved cancer treatment methods are adding years of life to affected persons, and survivors may be women who had disabilities before the onset of breast cancer or women may acquire disabilities because of the health condition.
What happens to women with disabilities at the onset of a cancer diagnosis or breast cancer survivors who acquire disabilities as a result of mastectomy?
What happens when women undergo treatment that results in hair loss or acquisition of mental disabilities due to the distress, stigma and discrimination that arises when they are diagnosed with breast cancer?
Reproductive age women may experience fertility problems due to the side effects of cancer treatment. The challenge becomes worse in an African context where infertility is generally regarded as a disability.
In the absence of appropriate counselling, the fear of breast cancer alone, upon diagnosis, may be enough to paralyse a person, or create problems that arise due to treatment, for example, infertility and miscommunication with intimate partners and other family members.
Within African contexts, infertility is a taboo, and women are often regarded as the culprits, in a context of double standards. Issues of male infertility are addressed privately and with care, in a bid to safeguard their dignity, yet women who experience fertility challenges are openly demeaned and devalued. Research that examines the link involving breast cancer, disability and rehabilitation, as well as breast cancer and mental health, is required.
◆