BREAST CANCER : FIGHTING EVERY WOMAN ’ S NIGHTMARE
my left arm above my waist and they say if you don ’ t do the exercises , you risk your arm staying stuck with that minimal movement .
I would say the radiotherapy was probably the easiest part of the whole treatment plan . You basically get to lie down on a bed under a machine that then beams rays to the area where your cancer was , the whole thing takes about 20mins and you need to do it 5 days a week . The reason why I needed radiotherapy was because although the chemo got rid of the tumor and the surgery of the affected flesh , there was still a risk that I had cancer cells floating around and the radiotherapy is needed to kill them off .
Radiotherapy is still a bit of a wild ride . Around the 10th session my skin started changing colour , a few days later the whole area was completely black and a few days after that I started getting blisters . Radiotherapy burns your skin . It ’ s painful and the only way to get through it is to be naked as long as possible in between sessions and if you have to wear clothes , only very loose 100 % cotton . It also made me feel tired , a tired that I actually have never felt before , especially just after each session . I would get home and just pass out . There was nothing I could do to stay awake , my eyes would be so heavy , so would my arms and legs , infact my entire body would feel like it weighed a tonne and I just needed to get into bed .
Through out all this , I had quite a few tests done . I would have a blood test before each chemo to check my white blood cell count ; I would have a cardiologist check my heart every 3 months because the chemo drugs could destroy your heart . During radiotherapy I would also occasionally have blood tests done to also check my white blood cells . These tests are so important but also very tense times because if at any point the results are not what they should be , it could mean stopping treatment for a while until things get back to an acceptable level . To me this always scared me because I didn ’ t know if I would be able to keep up the momentum if I had to stop at any point and also what would it mean for the
I encountered a few challenges throughout this journey . Some of them were as simple as keeping my cool . Some of the medication seems to result in you having a very short temper and there is nothing worse than losing your temper with the people who love you and are trying to help you through such a difficult journey .
Some challenges were trying to keep a positive head space . They say that your survival of something like this is largely dependent on your attitude . If you are positive , you take positive actions , you have positive thoughts it somehow energizes you especially during that dark days when things don ’ t look so bright . So to do this at the beginning was easy , first few weeks ? No problem . I had my family and friends cheering for me , I felt strong , yeah the side effects were bad but I was still standing . Yeah I am going to beat this cancer .
But as the weeks went by it became harder and harder as I became weaker and weaker . Then I realized being strong and positive doesn ’ t mean having to be smiley and cheery all the time . Some days were so bad and being positive to me was saying to myself , “ Tendayi , this pain is temporary . Remember that it only lasts for 5 days , just get through the 5 days and things will be different .”
My favourite mantra became “ One day at a time , and sometimes ; One hour at a time ”
Some of the challenges were things that made me sit up and start asking questions about the fairness of cancer treatment . For example , the drug Herceptin that I needed to have every 3 weeks for 12 months , the drug that increases your changes in making sure that the cancer never comes back . That crucial drug was for sale in Zim at USD2100 per vial , that means someone with my kind of breast cancer would need to pay USD35700 to be able to stand a chance of not getting the same cancer again . Meanwhile this very same drug was available in South Africa at USD600 per vial . For anyone , both prices are expensive but why was Zim so much more ?
I liked this kind of challenge though . It distracted me from my own aches and pains and got me to focus on finding out why and what could be done . There is something about refocusing your pain that really helps you get through days at a time . Thankfully all this rechanneling , chasing up and asking people why and pushing for change eventually resulted in the drug pricing being changed for Zim so now people can get the drug at the same price as across the border .
This is quite a big deal because Herceptin is not one of those drugs you can just send a runner to get for you . It has to be kept in a specific temperature , between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius and if the temperature goes anywhere out of that range the drug stops working . So the only option to get the drug at the SA price , was for you would to fly to SA , pick the drug , fly back and get it stored properly straight away as the packaging for travel was only good for a short period of time .
The other big challenge I encountered was when the only working radiotherapy machine in Harare broke down in the middle of my treatment in the middle of the first lockdown . Because I had not got to the end of my treatment we couldn ’ t be sure that if there were any cancer cells left after the surgery and chemo had been completely destroyed . The options going forward for me included a possible mastectomy .
The only other machine working was in Bulawayo and at that time the Covid infection rates were rising in that area and it just wasn ’ t an option .
I remember thinking to myself that I needed to understand what could be done as I had learned that there were 3 other radiotherapy machines in Harare that had been broken for over a year . So many
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