Survival through strength Women who have won the battle against breast cancer share their inspiring stories
Its estimated that one in every 28 South African women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime. In honour of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we’re honoured to share the inspiring stories of women who have won the battle against breast cancer and celebrated their survival.
Henrietta van Kramberg
Several dates in my life stand out – like my fascination with birthdays, especially my own! And Wednesday 18 June 2008, also known as the worst day of my life. It was the day that my son, Imani, graduated to heaven. He was two years, one month and three days old. He suffered from meningitis.
Then, Thursday 26 October 2010 at 2.10pm – not the worst day of my life, but a close second. First came the clinical examination by a Pink Drive nurse, then a referral to an oncologist who sent me for tests. Results from the bone and breast care clinic confirmed that the sample taken from my left breast was malignant. I needed a breast surgeon – a referred male doctor who stated, “Mastectomies, chemotherapy and forget about having babies!” I went for a different opinion. Three months of consultations and three opinions later, I landed up at Netcare Breast Care Centre of Excellence at Netcare Milpark Hospital on a Saturday afternoon. Here I met Dr Carol-Ann Benn (now professor) who, during our very first consult, presented me with options. All I wanted was another baby, “So freeze your eggs,” she told me.
Carol-Ann explained the test results. They diagnosed me with oestrogen receptor-positive non-invasive breast cancer at 37 years old – the production of oestrogen in my body was feeding the cancer and carrying a baby (or having my period) could be fatal. During New Year celebrations, I was mentally planning for the operation. The competent team at Milpark Breast Cancer Centre performed a sentinel node biopsy on Monday 3 January 2011. Four weeks later, I agreed to a mastectomy of my left breast. I had five operations and six months of chemo over two years and almost R300 000 in medical bills in the first year. In September 2011, they declared me cancer-free.
Throughout it all, one thing that remained was my desire to be a mother. So the day that they told me I was pregnant with triplets (natural conception) was extraordinary. But ingrained in my heart forever would be the day I gave birth: Saturday 7 October 2017. Just after 5pm, baby Lutendo was born – the only one of the triplets to survive in utero. We both defied the odds, my miracle baby and me. I have early detection and a great medical team to thank for my successful prognosis.
Cindy van WyK
It’s a pale winter’s morning on Monday 25 August 2014 as I walk into the Wilgeheuwel mammography unit for my annual check-up. I’m aware of the throbbing ache in my right breast, but I’m not too concerned, thinking it’s a recurring cyst that has inflamed. After the exam, I’m sent for a sonar. As the doctor moves the probe over my breast, I watch her expression and the monitor, and then I see it – a big grey mass the size of a golf ball. I look at her and I know instinctively what I am staring at. Two emergency biopsies are taken.
The next two days I’m like a robot; I keep busy, very busy. I make a conscious effort and tell cancer “You picked the wrong body. I will beat you. I will destroy you.” On Wednesday 28 August 2014, I’m given the formal diagnosis: malignant neoplasm in my right breast early stage two. On Wednesday 3 September I have a bilateral mastectomy. I see the oncologist on my 48th birthday, and we agree on the treatment plan. Six sessions of chemotherapy and 30 sessions of radiation.
Erma Bombeck the American humourist once said, “If you can’t make it better you can laugh at it!” I do exactly that and I involve my friends and family in the adventure. My hair falls out and we have a shave-a-thon party at my house, The Bald and the Beautiful, and I nickname myself Boldilocks. I turn my pain into a purpose, and I reframe all the negatives into positives. I wear bright red lipstick and show up for life each day, no matter how much it hurts or how many times I throw up. It’s 2019, and the balance is restored – I’m a cancer survivor.
Breast cancer is a vanity cancer because it affects the way you look, and for so many women out there it affects their self-esteem and self-worth. I want to encourage all women on this journey that surviving breast cancer isn’t impossible, it’s a dare. Embrace the inner beauty of your soul and let the scars be a reminder of the journey travelled and the victory of being a winner. Being called a survivor is an honour and not a label. I plan to cycle from Cairo to Cape Town in 2020, to raise awareness of breast cancer in Africa.
“Surviving breast cancer is not impossible,
it’s a dare.”
“Cancer taught me that you can do what you’ve never imagined you could do”
Piliswa Mazikwana
My name is Piliswa Mazikwana. I’m a professional nurse in a neonatal intensive care unit and a breastcancer survivor.
I was diagnosed with breast cancer in August 2013, when I was 24. I discovered the lump during my first self-examination. I underwent a mastectomy on September 11. I had only told my parents about the surgery the day before because I was terrified about having to explain the news to them. I was happy once it was over, but the hardest part was the pain of the drains needed to get the extra fluids out of my breast area.
On 30 September, I celebrated my 25th birthday. The following October, I started my chemotherapy. After my second session, the expander on my right breast reacted badly, and I had to have emergency surgery and finish all my chemo sessions earlier than expected. I remember sitting in the back seat of the taxi, tears rolling down my cheeks, asking myself, “How can this be another stumbling block on this journey?”
Once I got to the hospital, the doctors removed my expander. Now I have a flat breast on my right side, while the left one is still there. I survived, living with one breast for three-and-half years. I joined a group called Amabelebele Dragon boat club, which is an all-female group of survivors dealing with recovery.
I had a full reconstruction in July 2017. The five-hour procedure was done by one of my favourite doctors, Dr Aaron Ndhluni. One of the first things I bought after the surgery was a bikini, because this meant I could go to the beach as a young, beautiful woman, and not worry about a fake breast getting soaking wet or lost at sea. It’s never easy, but I try to have the most beautiful days. I celebrate little on my birthday now, but I do celebrate the dates when I was diagnosed and had my first operation. And I celebrate each year as a breast cancer survivor.
Teresa Wilson
My father ran the Comrades Marathon in 1979 and 1980. I was a teenager at the time. He passed away, after a courageous fight against cancer, on 7 June 2010. On the day my Dad passed away, I decided to run the Comrades Marathon and raise funds for CANSA. I completed my first run on 29 May 2011. Running Comrades for my Dad was an incredible journey of healing. My running buddy and I raised R125 000, donated by friends, family and colleagues. I was training for my second Comrades in 2012, and had just completed the Two Oceans Ultra Marathon, when I had my annual mammogram, on Friday 13 April. This was the day that would change my life forever. Within an hour of arriving, I was having a biopsy and being told that I had two tumours in my right breast. It was later confirmed that I had stage three breast cancer. So, I took the rest of 2012 off from running, work and life to run a race of a different kind. By 12 December, I was in remission. As a runner, each treatment became another point that I could tick off the list, believing that the finish line was there for me to cross. I was determined to run Comrades again, and I made a promise to myself: in June 2013, seven months after my last chemo session, I would compete as a survivor. It was a big commitment, but I kept my eye on the ball and put 2 June on my radar.
I started running again on the first day of my radiation therapy, which was on 31 October, and arrived in Durban for Comrades 2013. A big and long day lay ahead. Eleven hours and 47 minutes later, I crossed the finish line. I did it! I subsequently ran four more, between 2014 and 2017. Cancer taught me that you can do what you’ve never imagined you could do. It takes so much from you so quickly. Your emotions are a rollercoaster and it’s terrifying to suddenly face your mortality. Cancer taught me that you should focus on the important things in life
– love, family, friends and determination.
graCe Lombardo
It was 5pm, and I was feeding the youngest of my three kids. I was alone at home with them. I got a call from a private caller: the oncologist. She said, “Grace, the biopsy shows that you have invasive ductal carcinoma.” Cancer. I felt like I needed someone to physically hold onto. It couldn’t be my kids, obviously; I needed them to carry on believing things were cool. My son, seven, asked, “Mom, are you going to die?” and I replied, “No, I’m not.” Thinking about it now gives me the chills. It’s upsetting. It’s scary. It was a shock.
Two physical most women define beauty by are your breasts and your hair, and cancer takes both away. They told me my hair would start falling out, after about the 13th day of chemo. And that morning, I woke up, ran my hand through my hair and pulled out a handful of hair. At that moment, I felt like a cancer patient. For me, the best option was a mastectomy, and, I figured, this was what I would look like. I would have these scars. So I decided to have a mastectomy tattoo to cover the scars. I didn’t have to wait long until I met David, the perfect person to do it.
Molly Weingart
Around the time of my 32nd birthday, in January, I put a hand on my left breast and it felt strange. It differed from the other side along the edge because parts of it felt hard and solid. I made a mental note to ask my doctor about it. On Friday 24 March 2017, at 1.30pm, I went to get a routine pap smear. I asked my doctor to do a breast exam because my mom is a breast cancer survivor. She did the exam and her brow furrowed. “We have to get you an emergency mammogram.” I started sobbing uncontrollably because at that moment, I knew in my gut I was sick.
I hadn’t known that biopsies would be so painful. I thought it would be just like a shot when you get a vaccine, but it felt more like someone had stuck a straw into my breast and was trying to suck out the contents. I spent the rest of the week attempting to go to school, while I waited for the results. On Friday, March 31, 2017, I’d just finished a class and gone to the toilet, before getting on the train home. As I was washing my hands, the phone rang. It was the radiologist who had done the biopsy. In a calm, matterof-fact tone, as if she was performing a weather report, she told me that I had two types of cancer: DCIS and invasive ductal carcinoma.
The experience of having breast cancer left me feeling maimed and deformed. Every aspect of my femininity was attacked. I lost both my breasts and nipples. I had to harvest my eggs in case chemo made me infertile. I lost my hair. I felt revolting. Eventually, I got tattooed over the scars. The impact of David’s tattoo keeps rippling into my daily life in waves of healing that I couldn’t expect. Before I got the tattoo, I was so excited not to see scars when I looked down. The scars had felt like a continuous reminder of what I had lost, what I would never be or do. I was excited to see beauty instead of destruction. I didn’t expect or even believe that getting tattooed could make me feel beautiful again – it did! – or that instead of feeling like a medical oddity, I would feel like I’m a walking piece of art, and my body the canvas.
For almost 10 years, Chicago-based tattoo artist David Allen has made it his mission to help women reclaim their femininity after breast cancer and take back control of their body. This year, he teamed up with GHD on their Ink On Pink campaign. Collaborating with David for the designs on the stylers, GHD brought in two beautifully strong women to be the muse of this year’s limitededition collection, allowing us access to their incredible transformations.