The truth is uncomfortable sometimes, and so is breast cancer. It's why Dani Trops, a young survivor and influencer, decided it's time to speak truth to cancer.
With wit and humor, she's got a lot of people listening to her videos posted on social media.
"I won't lie, in the sense that I still have moments of panic where something feels off and that kind of just sparks that worst case scenario in my brain," Trops said.
It's been eight years now since Trop was diagnosed at the young age of 30. She underwent chemotherapy and now has spent seven years on Tamoxifen.
"So, for me it's a lot of joint pain, a lot of muscle pain," Trops said.
She also speaks candidly about fatigue, brain fog and buzzwords like "warrior," "invalidating," "brave," and "annoying."
"The 'at least' statements are a big one for me. Where it's like, 'at least you caught it early,' or 'at least, you know, it's not this type of cancer. At least you got a free boob job,'" Trops said.
Any of us who've gone through cancer know there's a whole other world of non-cancer people who mean very well, and they only want to cheer us up, but a growing number of survivors believe that just doesn't always work.
"You have to share and accept the feelings that you feel in order to get to the other side, because the only way past is through," Trops said.
Validation is her key to healing.
"And the other person just says, 'that really sucks.' That is more validating than trying to make it feel better or trying to fix it," Trops said.
She says the years after active treatment, "you're kind of left with this invisible survivorship that people can't see, they can't see the turmoil in your head, they can't see the pain."
But thanks to Trops, they just might.
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