Body Positivity and Self-Acceptance in the face of Cancer

I am part of the amazing Women Rock Switzerland Facebook Group. I have received so much support from this community, growing my business and its brand because of the opportunities that they provide.

Every month they set a challenge that allows us, as women, to grow personally and professionally.

I thought long and hard about this month’s challenge, focused on Body Positivity, Self-Worth and Self-Acceptance and, whether or not I wanted to participate. I decided that while I am not ready to go into real depth in the public domain, I am certainly ready to start scratching the surface.

I have been living with metastatic breast cancer since January 2015 - many of you will have already come across my story. I have shared parts of this journey and am building this business based on what has, and continues to happen to me, but I am quite guarded about how much I feel able to share in the public domain. Self-acceptance and body-positivity were the terms that most resonated with me when I read the challenge and I felt compelled to share some of my experiences.

I lost my hair to chemotherapy, my left breast to a mastectomy, and my fertility after my ovaries were removed as part of the global treatment.

On my wedding day - the wig was however, promptly sported!

Looking back, losing my hair should probably have been the easiest to deal with because it was the one thing I lost that I would eventually get back. I hated everything about it. I was displaying to the world that I was ill, there was simply no hiding it. Losing the privacy to deal with what was happening and the future we were losing made it all even harder. I wasn’t able to leave my house without a wig or a headscarf, I hated bald me. I was even more furious that I would have to wear a wig on my wedding day. All the positive comments in the world were not enough to make me feel ok about that. However, it was the turning point for me in having the confidence to go out in public without a head covering. I suddenly noticed that I had regrowth and shunned the head coverings straight after the wedding. The picture is me after make-up on my wedding day.

I had immediate breast reconstruction, so I was very lucky there. If I wear certain clothes, it is obvious that I have had a mastectomy, but I got to keep the feminine silhouette and for that, I am extremely appreciative. I wear my bikinis with pride – part of the mastectomy scar is visible and due to the lack of breast tissue, there is no cleavage on the left, but that breast tried to kill me, I’m glad that it’s gone, I don’t feel any need at all to hide that part of me.

Learning to accept my new life took a bit more time. We had desperately wanted children but cancer ended that dream. This took a long time to accept. I couldn’t bear hearing pregnancy announcements; I didn’t want to hold people’s babies – all while trying not to let people know that. Of course I was happy for them, but I was devastated. It took a long time, but I have finally arrived in a place where I accept what we lost. I don’t like it, I never will, but I can live with it. Why? Because I am still here today, now, in the present.