The cancer diagnosis makes people feel frightened itself, though they can hardly understand what it is. There are many false stereotypes and a lot of wrong information about people who survived or are still struggling with cancer. This often leads to social stigmatization of this group. Quite often healthy people just do not want to hear about it, and sometimes cancer patients are even treated as miserable “living dead”. I was diagnosed with cancer on my 29th birthday. I didn’t know anything about it and couldn’t imagine what way I was to go: from fear for my life to hope for recovery. During the treatment I shot a series of photographs. I didn’t want just to document all the stages or make a frightening story. My goal was to create visually striking images, which I hope could help people understand what a person facing a serious disease feels like.
After some years of infertility, my doctor told me that I probably wouldn’t be able to conceive a child anymore. I was depressed and then the COVID-19 lockdown made me cancel all my work trips as a photographer. Being in a high-risk group as a former cancer patient I had to cut off most of my face-to-face contacts and became a prisoner in my own house. After two months of isolation, my husband and I found out that I was pregnant. So a new phase of my life started, joyful yet disturbing. Pregnancy additionally raised the risk of severe COVID-19 for me. The anxiety grew as my closest relatives and even my husband became ill. After nine months full of hope and worries I gave birth to a boy.
