Today’s blog has been written by Ruth, @ruthcookson. She speaks beautifully about BRCA, the impact of this physically and emotionally and her journey to find healing.

I’ll start off by being completely honest: I didn’t know what to write about and I’ve written a lot about it. ‘It’ being BRCA.

I typed and deleted a few attempts at writing for the blog and nothing felt right. It didn’t flow and the ease with which I wrote before wasn’t there. I think I was trying to stir up some of the emotion that I’d written from before, when it dawned on me. There is healing.

4 years ago

If I look back to who I was 4 years ago just before my mastectomy, I am completely different in many ways, exactly the same in some, and a continuous work in progress.

My double mastectomy was hard physically and mentally, sure. But I unravelled after it. Big time. What hit me was a mixture of grief, unexpected grief, loss, physical symptoms of stress and I needed help.

Therapy

I started therapy just before my mastectomy to help me with life. We all need help with life!! I’m sure the universe knew what was a-coming!

I continued with therapy all the way through my recovery and stopped a year and a half after my mastectomy but just before my salpingo-oophorectomy.

What I walked through in that time was honestly the darkest times in my life. Moments where I felt my family would be better off without me. Intrusive thoughts. Moments where I just felt worthless and not enough. I felt like a burden. I’d had a mastectomy and I’d fallen apart yet it was my choice. All I wanted to do was live, it’s why I had all the surgery in the first place. But Jenny, my psychologist saved me and brought me back to myself. It was incredibly hard to expose yourself fully but it has been the most worthwhile thing I’ve ever done.

Healing

Fast forward to February 2024. Nearly 4.5 years post mastectomy, 2 years post salpingo-oophorectomy and a lot of work later, there is a lot of healing.

My mind whilst often busy and overwhelmed by life is not a dark place, it is not filled with anxiety. There is healing.

My life is FULL. It’s not perfect but it’s what I’ve always dreamed of having. Someone I love, my 3 boys and all the bloody football I could dare to dream of, but I want to be here, and I am not a burden. A BRCA gene mutation ultimately took my mum but also gave me the power to take control of my life and do all that I could to live it fully.

So if you’re heading into preventive surgery, just finding out you are a BRCA gene carrier, complicating feelings surrounding it all, frightened, overwhelmed, grieving, post-surgery and it’s all too much. I just want to say it’s ok to feel broken, sad or just a bit lost, because healing really is truly possible. 💕

“I know this transformation is painful,
But you’re not falling apart; you’re just falling into something different,
With a new capacity, to be beautiful.”
William C. Hannan