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Bulawayo Mastectomy Support Group
Pauline Treger
August 22, 2002

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in April 1993. Naturally, I was totally shocked and traumatised and had hard a very hard time dealing with it. Despite my problems, I decided that if I had had someone to talk to, I would have been in a better position to cope and manage my breast cancer.

The Bulawayo Mastectomy Support Group was started in July 1993 with the blessing of all the surgeons in town. Unfortunately, breast cancer is very prevalent world wide. Once I started my support group I discovered that there were like minded groups all over the world.

Our main aim is to give the affected woman and her family counselling on how to cope and deal with her trauma, by sharing our experience with them. We have found that sharing and caring is the best way to overcome the shock of being diagnosed with breast cancer.

Although we are under the umbrella of the Cancer Association, we are not funded by them, so any funds that we require we have to work for. Many, businesses and companies have been very generous towards our cause, and the donations we receive from them assist us in our work.

Apart from the counselling that we give the women, we also assist them with surgical breast prostheses. Until recently we were assisted by a trust fund which helped us buy these prostheses from the U.K. Unfortunately this has come to an end and we will have to find someone else to assist us.

Our biggest achievement is that we have been able to assist disadvantaged women from the rural areas. A big problem is that many of these women seek medical attention when their cancer is advanced. We are attempting to tackle this by distributing pamphlets and showing videos in order to educate and inform them.

I am happy to say that despite the very hard times that we are going through, we have continued to assist many women and we hope that this will be ongoing in the face of the tough economy.

Visit the Bulawayo Mastectomy Support Group fact sheet

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