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A portrait by Agata Cardoso, above right |
Breaking a taboo on breast cancer surgery
‘Photographs change the way women feel about themselves’
FACING a photographer’s shutter is the last thing that might be expected of a patient who has gone through the trauma of breast cancer, the disease feared by women more than any other.
But Agata Cardoso is confident her pictures of women who have had mastectomies can help in their recovery.
So much so, she has included her mother, who was diagnosed five years ago, in her gallery of photographs.
Ms Cardoso, 23, who lives in Bridgeway Street, Somers Town, said her work reassured sufferers that womanhood is not defined by the size of their breasts.
“Cancer charities think I’m sensationalising but I’m totally not,” she said.
“I never directly ask women to take part.”
She was devastated when her mother, Anna-Christina Hitoff, 43, was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Understandably, her fears were compounded by the fact that two of her aunts have also survived the condition.
But Ms Cardoso, an artist and part-time carer at Age Concern in St Chad’s Street, King’s Cross, said she could inspire hope through her photos of her mother and other women who have had mastectomies .
“For these women, being photographed really changes the way they see themselves,” Ms Cardoso said.
“For other women suffering from breast cancer it gives them role models and I think that’s important.”
The fine arts graduate from London Metropolitan University has met women from Leicester to Huddersfield and Stafford to Brighton who have bravely volunteered to be models for her art.
Reluctance to advertise the project on the part of cancer charities, she said, has not put her off hoping to have her photos published in a book one day.
Forty-four thousand women in the UK are diagnosed with breast cancer annually. Fewer than 12,500 die.
Symptoms include a lump in the breast, a change in size or shape of the breast or discharge from a nipple.
In Ms Hitoff’s case there was no forewarning. She only found out after a biopsy in preparation for a breast-lift operation.
“My mum was really insecure about her breasts after having children so she was thinking about having breast-lift surgery for quite a while,” said Ms Cardoso.
“Doctors didn’t find just one lump. There were cancer cells sprouting all over the place.”
“I was worried that she was going to die and that I was going to lose her but she was really strong,” said Ms Cardoso.
Within two weeks Ms Hitoff had undergone a double mastectomy.
She has since had reconstructive surgery and must take the drug Tamoxifen for five years to help reduce the levels of the female sex hormone oestrogen, which is thought to be linked to breast cancer.
“When my mum had the operation I know she was really ashamed about the way she looked,” said Ms Cardoso. “She didn’t really speak about it. But since this project she’s the most open she has ever been with me.
“Because there’s such a high success rate it’s not the fear of death that affects sufferers as much as the other things that go with it.”
She said: “Rather than disguising the fact that these women have had serious surgery, it should be celebrated. It doesn’t make you any less of a woman if your breasts are missing.”
She challenged the western assumption that breasts are necessary to be sexually attractive.
“Breasts are for breast feeding and that’s all their good for at the end of the day,” she said. |
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