Virgilia Hess discovered that she had breast cancer during her pregnancy: she talks about the treatments, the mental load and the changes that the arrival of the disease caused in this very particular context.
One in eight women develop breast cancer during their lifetime, reports Santé Publique France. Virgilia Hess was only 32 years old and six months pregnant when she learned she had breast cancer. This pregnancy saved her life: she tells Géraldine Mayr about her journey in this month of Pink October.
Testifying, a “double therapy”
Virgilia is a television weather reporter, a particularly demanding and competitive job. She works staggered hours and a prolonged absence from the antenna can quickly lead to its replacement. “The illness is ruining my career”, she then feels.
Beyond her career, time is running out for Virgilia’s health: it is impossible to wait until the end of her pregnancy to start chemotherapy. “I told myself they were going to kill my baby“, she remembers.
Virgilia documented her journey on her social networks to raise awareness, “I saw that it did good to women and men whose wives, mothers, sisters had experienced the same thing and thanked me for talking about it”. For her, helping through her experience was a “double therapy, to see that ultimately I wasn’t going through all this for nothing.”
A saturated mental load, very heavy treatments, a major operation, radiotherapy: the young woman returns to *”the marathon of major treatments”*. She also describes a feeling of guilt, “because I had taken all my loved ones into this wonderful adventure that is motherhood, and in fact we go from dream to nightmare”.
Today, Virgilia and her daughter are doing well: “There is always this little gray cloud, at times, above my head, like a sword of Damocles, but which also allows me to enjoy life to the fullest.” She publishes My pregnancy saved my life published by Leduc.
