Cancer Survivor: We Hear A First Hand Account

One woman bares all about her breast cancer journey and offers tips on trying to stay positive through it all.

- Amy Greenburg

Deborah Roques’ diagnosis came at an already low point in her life. Grieving the recent loss of her boyfriend, who passed away in a motorbike accident in Indonesia, the then 28-year-old French expat was not only depressed but also found her body completely out of balance, thanks to a lack of sleep, loss of appetite and too much exercise. Tired and losing weight rapidly, she felt that something just wasn’t right, but she didn’t know what. It was six months before she found some sort of identifying sign: a lump on her breast.

What she thought was a simple visit to her doctor during her lunchbreak turned out to be a life-changing turn of events. She was diagnosed with stage-two breast cancer that had started spreading into her lymph nodes.

“It was a shock. I had always led a healthy lifestyle, paying a lot of attention to my diet,” says Deborah. Breast cancer did not run in her family, so it was never something she was particularly fearful of.

It was clear that a mastectomy was the obvious route for removing the large tumor in her breast.

“I thought, ‘What’s happening to me? I’m 28 years old, I’m single, I pay attention to my body, I pay attention to how I look.’ But, I’m quite pragmatic, and wanted to get the cancer out straight away,” she says.

After reconstructive surgery in Singapore, Deborah moved to France for six months to be with her family while she underwent chemotherapy treatment.

Once she returned to Singapore, Deborah opted to have her nipple removed to ensure all the cancer was gone, then built back through plastic surgery to balance out her breasts. For her, the beauty aspect was very important to feeling comfortable in her own body again.