The Untold: Brave Ghanaian women who have fought breast cancer and won

GhanaWeb introduces 'The Untold' to our cherished readers and viewers today, October 29, 2019.

The Untold is a programme that seeks to share the stories of individuals who braved their storms and challenges to emerge victorious.

They share their stories to inspire others facing similar hurdles, to remind them there is light at the end of the tunnel.

The maiden edition of the show is dedicated to the breast cancer awareness month as two brave women share their breast cancer journey with us.

Many women can’t imagine life without even one of their breasts and as such will choose to run around looking for any possible alternative to save their precious God-given ‘oranges’ when diagnosed with the much-dreaded breast cancer.

This action, however, can cause more harm to victims of the disease in the long term and contributes to why 82-year-old Priscilla Yarkor Enninful decided to get rid of the breasts immediately she found out that she had been infected.

Aunty Priscilla as she is affectionately called by many, has lived the last 34 years of her life without her breasts, and she says she has not regretted her decision for even a day.

“I reasoned it this way, I have foreign things that are in my system and they have no business being there so if the doctors have discovered it and I am not a doctor whatever they say, I’ll go along with it.”

To her, life has been normal despite her having no breasts and the love of her late husband and daughter for her didn’t drop a bit just because of her situation.

The former GNA worker, who spent most of the last 40 years of her life in the United States of America with her family has dedicated her time now to encouraging women not to shy away from sharing their cancer stories as that will serve as a source of strength to others.

“I don’t remember how I drove home from the doctor’s office after receiving the news, but I remember going home, crawling up to my bed and going to sleep. For the next 24-hours, I barely came out of my bed and when I finally gathered myself to come out of my bed, it was time to break the news to my family. They took it well I was actually quite surprised,” this is the story of another brave survivor of breast cancer.

Juliette Mills-Lutterodt was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly before she turned 40 and chose her birthday to undergo surgery.

Offered the options of either removing just the cancerous lump from her breast since it was discovered even before stage one or totally taking the breast off, Mrs Mills-Lutterodt chose the latter as that was the safest option.

“What made my diagnosis dangerous was that the type of cancer I had the nature of it was that the possibility of it growing rapidly was higher and where it was placed if I did a lumpectomy, which was removing the lump, it will deform my breast. It always came back and sometimes more aggressive than it did before…,” she said.

12-years down the line, Mrs Mills-Lutterodt says she feels more beautiful than she was before her diagnosis as she believes what she initially thought was bad news, turned out to be a blessing.

After her journey, she established Pink for Africa, an NGO that supports victims of breast cancer as well as educate women in general on the disease.

Watch the maiden of The Untold below