When Cassie went through breast cancer treatment at 34, it changed how she felt about her body. She challenged herself to build back her confidence – and now she’s helping other people do the same.
I didn’t recognise my body after treatment
I always liken the aftermath of breast cancer treatment to lending someone your brand new car.
It’s the car you've always wanted – one that fits your needs so well and is super comfortable. But you lend it to someone and, when you get it back, they've added 100,000 miles to the clock, the tyres are bald, the seats are tired and lumpy, and the paintwork is damaged, scratched and dented. It’s not the car you recognise as the one you own.
This is how I felt after my breast cancer treatment.
The body I had inhabited for 34 years – the body I knew so well – had been passed to the medical team to cure, and while the cancer may have gone, the body they returned to me wasn't anything I recognised.
Breast cancer prompted me to go on a journey of self-discovery
I struggled with this initially. I soon found there was a gap in the support offered to women after treatment to help them cope with the physical and psychological side effects of what they’d been through.
However, I realised I couldn't go on hating what my body had become and resenting it for basically trying to kill me.
So, I began a period of self-discovery which involved me testing out my body: seeing what it could and couldn't do. What I could now cope with and what I couldn't. I didn't liken it to how my body was before, because it would never be the same again.
But that didn't mean it couldn't be better.
Over the 18 months after finishing treatment, I took up a few challenges which helped me test out my body.
I tried my hand at horseback archery (being an archer and horse rider it was only natural to combine the two). I climbed Ben Nevis with my violin and played at the summit. And I took part in a boudoir photoshoot in just my underwear.
These are things I'm not sure I ever would have done if I hadn't been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Learn about Moving Forward
Breast cancer and its treatments can mean changes to your body and how you look, but you don't have to cope with them alone. There are plenty of resources out there to help you, many of which you can find via our Moving Forward programme and 'coping with changes to your body' information page.