Ivone Palenzuela
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Mar 12 (EFE).- Vicky Rojo has breast cancer, a type of cancer with a high survival rate of 70%. Unfortunately, she is part of the remaining 30% who develop what is known as metastatic breast cancer, which, as she herself explains, “at the moment has no cure” and has a life expectancy of five years from diagnosis.
“People tell me: ‘Oh, you have breast cancer, you’re going to be cured.’ And no, I’m not going to be cured,” said this patient in an interview with EFE while preparing to participate in the first Women’s Race of the year in Spain, who has proposed to deal with the disease “naturally and with humor”, although always accepting that in this matter of overcoming great obstacles, everyone does what they can.
Four years ago, she discovered the lump by putting on body cream and, since then, her life stopped and a whole process began in which she was first diagnosed with primary breast cancer: “You feel lost, we all hear about cancer, but until you experience it up close you don’t fully immerse yourself in it”.
He passed all the tests and treatments and when it was time to rest and recover his body, it did not respond. “I couldn’t dress myself for ten months, I was extremely tired, I had to ask my daughter to put on my panties,” he adds.
By then, his previous life with a job of more than 20 years in banking had vanished and only that terrible fatigue and constant visits to the doctor in search of evidence that would reveal what was happening to him remained.
In an attempt to recover his routine, he returned to his job but the pain became unbearable and he only lasted four days that ended with a visit to the emergency room and a contrast-enhanced scan that finally revealed his diagnosis.
“My L2 vertebra was destroyed by metastasis and I had to have an urgent operation, a vertebroplasty to put cement on that vertebra,” he says, while recalling the happiness he felt to finally have a diagnosis.
“When I was aware of what a metastasis is, which means that you have no cure and that you don’t know if it is a 1, 2 or 5-year process with devastating statistics, I fell apart”, but from there, he decided that he was going to live thinking about breaking those statistics.
In addition to her husband and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Rojo finally found a fundamental pillar of support in the Spanish Association of Metastatic Breast Cancer and that is that she, like so many others, did not feel represented with the support speeches or workshops dedicated to to patients with breast cancer who have not developed metastases.
THE DREAM OF CHRONIFYING THE DISEASE
The main premise of this association is “more research for more life” and, above all, more funds for studies to obtain drugs that make the disease chronic, because today “curing is a utopia”.
Another of the lines of work is to give visibility to patients and, for this reason, the initiative “The Missing M” has been promoted in collaboration with the Daiichi Sankyo-AstraZeneca Alliance and whose objective is to complete the conversation about cancer breast cancer with what is known as Triple M: Woman, because according to data from the association, 99% of the cases occur in them, Breast and the great absentee, Metastasis.
Within this action, the association will be present at all the stops of the Women’s Race, which begins its journey this Sunday in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and in which there will be an information stand on metastatic breast cancer, as well as guidelines for donating funds.
As the visible head of the association in the Canary Islands, Vicky Rojo will be in an exhibitor located throughout the weekend in the Las Arenas shopping center and will participate in the race with a great desire to delve into her illness with all those interested in knowing more.
Another fundamental point in the association consists of acting as a meeting point for patients and that is that, in his case, it helped Rojo a lot to listen to the stories of others to relativize his own.
In the Canary Islands there has not yet been a physical meeting, but through a WhatsApp group the patients share their doubts, their fears and their experiences and, without a doubt, it is a “very liberating” space and it is often difficult to transfer fears related to the disease to loved ones because they too are going through delicate moments.
THROW DOWN STEREOTYPES
“If you see me, you would never say that I have cancer or that I am sick, there are many people who trivialize this and because of my appearance they tell me that I have nothing and that I am going to be cured for sure,” she says.
“Everyone thinks you’re screwed if you’re like Pau Donés in his documentary, but before that you live with diarrhea, nausea, you can’t go out when you want and you have a lot of muscle pain,” he adds.
“I bought a wig that was the same as my hair because I didn’t want people to look at me with pity, then at home I went without a wig or with a scarf,” she says.
She fights all these stereotypes from her Instagram account @rosa_empolvado, in which she also criticizes this “pink cancer” that is being sold, especially during the month of October, by large multinationals and some media and that leaves completely displaced the metastatic breast cancer with which she has had to live. EFE