Let’s normalise battle-scarred bodies

In case you missed all my other posts, October is breast cancer awareness month. As we're getting towards the end of the month, I want to focus on an important aspect of life during and after breast cancer.... normalising battle-scarred bodies.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the UK with around 55k women being diagnosed every year. Most women with breast cancer will have surgery as part of their treatment plan. For nearly 15k women, this will be a mastectomy. A mastectomy refers to the surgical removal of one or both breasts to also remove the cancer. It's not a new treatment, but it is one of the most effective.

Many women who are found to carry certain genes choose to have preventative mastectomies every year (such as Angelina Jolie) to dramatically reduce their risk of developing the disease.

Yet despite mastectomies being very common, there's still far too little conversation around them - and around the effects of living with a battle-scarred body after treatment has ended.

And every woman may be affected differently. Whether you're struggling with scarring, frustrated by the lack of decent bras and swimwear options (a problem I know ALL too well and in fact I had custom-pockets put into existing swimwear to deal with!), uncomfortable with being lopsided, rethinking what tops you're comfortable wearing or just bloody self-conscious, there needs to be a lot more support... and not the underwired kind!

I'm not sure what the answer is, but raising awareness and normalising the appearance of post-breast-cancer bodies is the best place to start.

I'm always happy to answer questions about mastectomy, so if you have any, feel free to shoot them over. And I'm hoping LinkedIn doesn't ban this post cos of the images it contains!

D x

#breastcancerawarenessmonth #breastcancer #breastcancerprevention#mastectomy #breastcancereducation #breastcancersupport