I discovered breast cancer at the age of 39. The cancer looked benign by all accounts, so even the doctors were shocked when it was confirmed to be malignant. At that moment, your life turns around in every way. When you get cancer, you think it’s over. I have two children, to whom I had to explain that mom is sick, why I lost my hair, why I am weak. The aggravating circumstance was that even then I was working at the Cancer Department at the Cantonal Hospital in Zenica and that I knew that people die from cancer. I knew what was waiting for me, how difficult the treatment was and I knew that I might not survive. But luck was in the fact that through my work I met women from the Association “Život”. Women who survived cancer 15 or 20 years ago and that was my motivation and hope that I can survive too. I said to myself, when they fought with this kind of disease, why couldn’t I be one of them. And then I decided. I told myself that when I finish treatment, I will be one of those women who will support a woman who faces this kind of disease. And that’s why I do what I do today.
This is the experience of dealing with breast cancer of Dijana Jerković, who has been fighting breast cancer since 2017. She underwent breast removal surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Today, she is on hormonal therapy, aware that she has a chronic disease that will never be cured. But happy because she is alive. Because she has the opportunity to watch her son, who was 4 years old when she was diagnosed with the disease, grow up. He watches his second son, who was a teenager at the time, become a grown man.
Today, Dijana is the president of the Citizens’ Association “Život” Zenica and the head nurse at the Department of Breast Diseases at the Cantonal Hospital in Zenica. Fate brought her to the Association, but she stayed there with the desire to help all other women facing a diagnosis of breast cancer, to support them in moments when they think there is no hope left. Because for cancer patients, support is the most important thing.
A woman without a breast cannot return home
“Unfortunately, we are an environment where the disease is still a shame, a taboo, something that is not talked about. The environment begins to perceive a woman who is faced with breast cancer differently. She herself feels insecure. Her appearance changes, she loses part of her body, she loses her hair due to chemotherapy. She is afraid that she will not be accepted. Often justified, because we have situations when the husband does not allow the woman to return home after breast removal,” Dijana points out.
In the Association “Life” women can get all kinds of support. There they exchange experiences, talk to each other, but they also have a psychologist with whom they can share their fears. Psychological sessions can be individual and group, and often the whole family participates in them. Because as Dijana says, cancer does not only affect women, the whole family.
“Every time, for every check-up, you go through that fear that your diagnosis will come back. You live in constant fear. You are afraid of metastases. Your life is reduced to one check-up after another. When that check-up is over, everything is fine, you relax, you forget about it for a while. However, each subsequent one brings you back to the beginning and so on in a circle,” explains Dijana.
The association was founded 20 years ago. It currently has 30 members, to whom it provides psychological and material support through the purchase of orthopedic devices, bras, prostheses, elastic gloves that are necessary in the treatment process, as well as supplements to strengthen immunity. For years, it has been organizing street actions in which it points out the importance of early detection of breast cancer. It provides support in treatment, and every year it carries out special activities in the month of October – the month of the fight against breast cancer. Members of the association are also regular participants in the Race for Life – Race for the cure.
Prevention, prevention, prevention
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. About 1.67 million new cases are diagnosed worldwide and more than 500,000 women die from the disease…Since 2013, BiH has recorded a steady increase in the number of affected women. But when we detect the tumor in time (up to 1 cm in size), it is curable in 98% of cases. This is precisely why the “Life” Association devotes a large part of its activities to prevention.
“This year, education was organized in secondary schools, where we told young girls about the importance of early detection of breast cancer. We explained to them how to do self-examinations, what are the risk factors, because unfortunately the age limit for breast cancer screening is getting lower and lower. That’s why it’s important that young girls get their checkups on time and know what they need to pay attention to,” emphasizes Dijana.
The trainings are also conducted in cooperation with other associations in Zenica, so that as many women as possible are included in this process. But without regular check-ups and mammography, there is no adequate prevention. Unfortunately, mammography is a luxury for many patients, especially in remote, rural areas. That is why the Association “Život” strives to provide women with examinations with a mobile mammograph as often as possible. Last year, thanks to this Association and the organization THINK PINK, a mobile mammograph arrived in Vareš, the most remote municipality in the Zenica-Doboj Canton.
But even so, many women simply do not want to be examined and discover the tumor when it is already too late.
“Until women start reporting cancer at an early stage, until we achieve that women detect the disease in time, we have not talked or done enough,” said Dijana.
What is devastating is that nurses often personally call patients and ask them to get examined. Often, this is in vain. Dijana believes that the reason for this is our mentality. Women are afraid of the diagnosis itself, they are afraid that doctors will “find something” for them.
“We work every day to break that taboo, because it is very important that this type of cancer is detected in time. I am one of the examples. “Thank God, I’m alive, I’m healthy and I’m working,” emphasizes Dijana.
Breast cancer is not the end.
Breast cancer is not the end, it can be treated. You can live with it. You can get by with minor surgery, even without chemotherapy. But only if the disease is detected at an early stage. The problem is that we usually don’t go to the doctor until something hurts. And breast cancer doesn’t hurt. In the beginning, there are not even any visible symptoms. That’s why it’s important to do a self-examination at least once a month, a mammogram once a year if you’re over 40, or an ultrasound if you’re younger.
Previously, breast cancer was diagnosed in women over 50, but now women as young as 25 are also often diagnosed. The myth is that you have to have a family history of the disease. Diana had no one who had breast cancer, so she got it again. Many young women use hormone therapy. And that is one of the risk factors. Fewer and fewer women are breastfeeding. Women are giving birth later and later. We are all under stress. Because of work, family obligations, a hectic pace. We eat irregularly, we don’t eat healthily. But even without these risks, to get breast cancer, it is enough just to be a woman.
Pink October
Pink October is the month of fighting breast cancer. It has been celebrated since the 1990s to raise awareness about the importance of prevention and routine early diagnostic examinations for breast cancer. Bosnia and Herzegovina is the only country in Europe that does not have a screening program, which involves examining a healthy population without symptoms for the purpose of prevention, or the active detection of any disease, including breast cancer. Without this national program, citizens are condemned to their own conscience about the importance of preventive examinations. That is why the largest number of those who still see a doctor when it is already too late. And when the chances of recovery are much lower. When treatment is much more difficult and expensive. Sometimes even impossible.
For years, oncology patients in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina have had problems with obtaining cytostatics. Many women have lost their battle for life while waiting on the “death lists”. That is why it is important to detect breast cancer in time.
Because early disease detection means LIFE.
Written by: Vedada Sećerbajtarević
This story was made possible through the generous support of the American people through the Local Works program of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The author and the Peacebuilding Network are solely responsible for the content of this story. The views expressed in this story do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.
