Fear, stigma, delay costing women their lives

As Breast Cancer Awareness Month begins, the Barbados Association of Palliative Care is urging women to get tested early, while a cancer survivor is reminding Barbadians that ignoring symptoms can cost lives.

Deiann Sobers, a grief counsellor with the association, said too many women were dying from cancers that could have been caught sooner.

“One of the things that concerns us the most is, why are we losing so many women early or not reporting early enough to breast cancer? Not only breast cancer, cervical cancer, colon cancer, those types of cancers that you figure you would pick up early,” she said.

Sobers noted that embarrassment, fear, and reliance on home remedies were common reasons for delays. “I can go and take some castor oil or Epsom salts, but you’re not following up on the symptoms that are happening within your body,” she said. Others worried about costs or how their partners would view them after surgery.

“Then with married women, they think, well, if my husband sees this, if I lose my breast, what would he think of me? If I have to have a hysterectomy, what would be my activities in terms of sexual activities with my husband? So I’m thinking of me personally, my body personally, and others, instead of thinking, well, this is my health, and I want to live. I don’t want to die early,” Sobers stressed.

Cancer survivor Tonya Byer echoed those concerns. “I think people need to be more aware of their bodies and take the signals that it is giving them and follow up on it,” she said. “A lot of people feel things are not right… Whereas I think the mindset should be, yes, you try your own things, but it shouldn’t be that you have to keep doing it. Because if you keep doing it, what you’re doing isn’t working.”

Byer, diagnosed at stage two, credited early detection for saving her life. “When it comes to your health, there’s nothing blissful about ignorance. If you catch it late, sometimes it just makes it so much more difficult to roll back. Can’t roll back time,” she warned.

She contrasted her case with that of her late mother-in-law, who hid a breast lump and turned to natural remedies until the cancer advanced.

“Unfortunately, we only found out when it had gone to a point where you pretty much can’t hide it,” Byer said. “That’s where we found it, which unfortunately is at a stage where everyone is on their back foot.”
(LG)