'I was told Black people don't get cancer and chemotherapy wasn't built for me'
A Black mum who says she was made to feel "inhumane" throughout her cancer treatment has started a support group for other women of colour with the disease.
Leanne Pero MBE went to the doctors to get checked after developing a lump on her breast several years ago. Despite her mum being diagnosed with the disease twice, she was turned away and told she was too young to have breast cancer.
After being urged to go the doctors again by her massage therapist in 2016, Leanne managed to get an appointment on the same day she phoned up. Within 14 days, she was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer at the age of 30.
By that point, new lumps had developed in the same breast, and the original one was seven centimetres long. Leanne, from Peckham, south-east London, endured eight rounds of chemotherapy every three weeks, before being put on immunotherapy injections for 18 months.
She was given the all clear one year later, in 2017, after it was recommended she had a double mastectomy and her breasts reconstructed due to her family history with cancer. But on top of battling the disease, she also faced prejudices as a Black woman.
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Black Women Rising now has 450 members (Amanda Akokhia)Leanne told MyLondon: "I felt ashamed and that I was to blame for my diagnosis and then even more so when I started to tell people from my community because of how misinformed people were. There was a lot of ignorance. I was told Black people don't get cancer; that because my mum is mixed race it must be the white gene; that cancer was a curse for things you've done in the past; not to take chemo because it wasn't built for Black people.
"All these things were so unhelpful on top of the shock and horror of the diagnosis." Leanne was only eight years old when her mum was first diagnosed. As she was so young, she didn't understand what was going on other than the fact that her mum had to cut off her dreadlocks.
Now, she applauds her mum for being a "soldier", coming home from chemotherapy on the bus and looking after her and her six siblings. During her own treatment, Leanne met other women of colour and realised how isolated they were too, as they were not understood by their family and friends, hospitals or getting the support they needed.
She said: "I was told that we're out of wigs from the ethnic section. When I looked at this magazine there was a whole load of wigs for Caucasian women and then there was a couple of pages at the back of the magazine for people of colour. And we are in an inner-city London hospital where there's all different cultures and people around.
"There were gaps that for me personally made an already tough experience worse, it made me feel a bit inhumane." This prompted Leanne to start her support group, Black Women Rising. She tried approaching the hospital she attended, but was told they could not accommodate these sessions.
So she booked a meeting room in her offices in Peckham, and her mum brought the kettle and cups from their home. Eight people arrived at that gathering in 2017. The group now has 450 members. Leanne said: "My main focus is empowering women of colour going through cancer diagnosis, empowering them to advocate for themselves and move away from the trauma of the cancer.
"It's wonderful to hear stories of other women and their cancers. Women have said 'if I hadn't have found Black Women Rising I don't know what I would have done' and that because of Black Women rising they don't need to be alone." The charity has held an exhibition at OXO Tower, showcasing black women and their cancer scars.
It has also put on a six-night show in Peckham about not feeling heard, as well as regularly hosting support groups and coffee mornings, and working with those in the healthcare profession to create change. Leanne's story is one of six moving personal stories that appear in a new unique book 'From the Margins', released by Gilead Sciences to raise awareness of the issue of marginalisation and health inequality in the UK.
Leanne said: "It is clear that in different illnesses there are different sets of stigmas and that is where our work comes in of being disruptive. I know we can't do this alone if we are going to be making change when it comes to health and equality in this country. I still know that we've got a long way to go but we're getting there."
Leanne's full story and the book can be read here.
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