Breast cancer: so photographs and stories help patients
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Cristina and Luisa met through a mutual friend. Although they both lived in a small town in Valsesia, they had never seen each other before. Before, that is, that meeting at Cristina’s house in which they found themselves talking about another thing they had in common: breast cancer that had struck them a year apart.
It was an acquaintance in which Cristina, just 39 years old at the time of her diagnosis in 2005, found much comfort, and which gave her the opportunity to converse about what she was experiencing in a normal and simple way, far from that world made up of words – like a biopsy , metastases, chemotherapy and drugs with unspeakable names – unknown to her.
“It was a magical encounter, which happened at a time when there was nothing magical about it anymore. A moment when you just feel the need for someone to tell you about that thing using normal and understandable terms – he tells us -. Someone who has lived or is living the same experience as you, who can really understand you, and with whom you can talk without fear of insecurities, fears of women, of fragility, of eyelashes, nails and hair that can fall out”.
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Between Cristina Barberis Negra And Luisa Morniroli, now ex-patients, a friendship cultivated over time was born, made up of closeness, solidarity and comparison. And also the desire to give a voice and face to those who, like them, have overcome the disease with strength and positivity, helping other women with a history of the disease not to feel alone.
By bringing together their passions, photography for Luisa and creative writing for Cristina, in 2017, together and with the support of the Humanitas breast specialists, they thus created Smiles in Pink: a project with photographic exhibitions and stories of women who, without denying their own frailties, have transformed the disease into an opportunity to rediscover themselves. An initiative also made up of podcasts and events to promote prevention and support treatment pathways.
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The meeting that started it all
“When I met Luisa, I had already cut my hair very short. And I had also bought a wig very similar to my hair – Cristina tells us again – I had already wanted to take shelter to face the aftermath”.
Her journey began when she noticed something strange while sleeping on her stomach, something that felt like a grain to the touch. Hence the decision to carry out the appropriate checks which then led to a Quadrantectomy, the emptying of the axillary lymph nodes, 4 double cycles of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and pharmacological therapy.
“At the time of diagnosis I felt lost, with a great emptiness around me. I was so young. I really felt too young for such a disease. I had too many things to do – continues Cristina – I remember that Luisa came to my house with her hair that they were growing back and put before me a prospect of the future that perhaps at that moment I was not able to see so clearly and limpidly. She told me all about her story. She, in whom they had found a tumor bigger than mine and at a stage slightly more advanced, it helped me to look into the future using simple words”.
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Smiles in Pink
It was precisely starting from their experiences and from that urgent need to confront each other throughout the treatment process, that the two friends came up with the idea of creating Smiles in Pink. “By activating a sort of word of mouth and involving friends and relatives from our area, we started the project by taking photos and telling the stories of 12 women, immediately realizing how the need to share one’s experiences and to confront us and with other people in the same condition was very strong – explains Cristina – From then on it was a real virtuous contagion, because, year after year and with the strength of Humanitas who believed in the project, we got to involve more than 100 women in different cities of Italy, for example in Turin, Catania, Milan, Bergamo and Varese”.
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An opportunity to rediscover yourself
The project is divided into photo shoots and writing workshops. “We always try to carry out these activities in places where people feel comfortable, taking photos outdoors, with expressions and poses that make them feel at ease – adds Cristina – Everything becomes an opportunity to be together, have fun , writing to tell, elaborate and give back a role. We then create real portraits in words from which emerges what these women are, their characteristics and perspectives, what they love and hate most, the feelings and emotions they feel to transfer to those who are living their own experience.Portraits that also tell how they became following the disease and how the latter can become a turning point to get back at the center of one’s life”.
All the photographic exhibitions can be found in the waiting rooms of Humanitas hospitals and medical centers throughout Italy and recently also in the atrium of the Pio XI hall of the Catholic University of Milan. The stories and testimonies, however, have been collected on the site (where it is also possible to get in touch with the two founders of the project), in monographic booklets distributed during the exhibitions and events, and in the book “Sorrisi in Fiore”.
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How important are images and words in the treatment process
Furthermore, to measure the impact of storytelling with photos and stories on treatment pathways, Sorrisi in Rosa has also commissioned a study from Cremit, the Research Center on Media, Innovation and Technology Education of the Catholic University.
From October to December 2022, over 400 questionnaires were collected (68% completed by patients, 23% by women participating in the project and 9% by caregivers). The results show that the most appreciated narrative form is undoubtedly the photographic one (26% photographic exhibitions and 12.5% the website), that the majority of women have regained confidence in the different forms of narration (4.57 out of a score of 6), that everything can be overcome (4.49 out of 6), that they have felt less alone (4.43 out of 6) and that hope can be found again (4.47 out of 6).
A focus of the survey was also reserved for the testimonials of the project, who said they took part in it to encourage women to participate in screening (23%), to demonstrate that it is possible to overcome the disease (17%), to contribute to prevention actions (17%) or to bring one’s point of view on the treatment experience (10%). For them, participating in Sorrisi in Rosa was also a way to bring out emotions (4.46 out of 6), elaborate them (4.41 out of 6) or share memories (4.26 out of 6).
“The data that strongly emerges from this survey is that the authenticity of the narratives can be of comfort, especially in moments when the unexpected brings so much fragility into a woman’s life, and that it can help to re-elaborate the experience and share it – concludes Cristina – Furthermore, it also appears that Sorrisi in Rosa is giving the possibility to many women to give meaning to the disease precisely by telling it.If we think that until not so long ago, being sick was considered a taboo and a fact that had to be kept under wraps, we can definitely say that the project is helping to make great strides in the opposite direction.”
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