Meet Ria Despi: Skin Cancer & Breast Cancer Survivor

Meet Ria Despi, a skin cancer and 5-year breast cancer survivor! We spoke with her about her advocacy journey and her emotions around reaching that 5-year mark. 

What were some high and low moments for you in survivorship? 

My breast cancer journey was atypical. People assume that I found my cancer through a lump in my breast, but I never felt one. I had no signs of breast cancer. I went to my regularly scheduled mammogram, and that is how they found the cancer. When I was diagnosed, I was 41. They were about to raise the recommended mammogram starting age to 45, but I asked them to do mine earlier since I had been on a routine since finding a fatty tissue lump a few years prior. If I had waited to do my mammogram, I wouldn’t have known for YEARS that I had breast cancer. My cancer would’ve progressed further, and I could have had a worse prognosis.

Physically, I had a single mastectomy with a direct implant. The implant became infected and needed to be removed. A few months later, my surgeon told me that they could try the implant again. I decided to wait until I had completed my treatments to try again. Then, COVID hit, and I couldn’t get any elective surgeries. This, for me, was a blessing in disguise. It gave me more time to think about whether I needed an implant to feel like myself again. I still haven’t received a new implant or the DIEP flap surgery. I’m okay with being unilateral. I have made peace with the body cancer has left me with.

When I was in active treatment, I couldn’t wait to be done. I wanted to go back to how life used to be. Little did I know, life after treatment would be even harder for me.

After active treatment ended, my cancer team sent me on my way.  They handed me a bunch of papers that I didn’t have the time or energy to go through. They offered support groups, but I wasn’t ready to attend yet. First, I wanted to learn about this new version of myself.

Cancer is life-altering and changes you as a person. After active treatment, I had to pick up the broken pieces of myself. Cancer left me with an old, fractured version of myself and a new version of myself. How do I pick up these mismatched pieces and put them together again? It’s hard, right?

I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a different person. If you didn’t know me personally, you wouldn’t know that I was going through cancer treatment. I wore wigs and put on makeup. Cancer was an invisible disability for me. What I looked like on the outside was very different from how I felt on the inside.

I felt my lowest when I was trying to put myself back together and heal. The old version of me from pre-cancer photos and memories no longer existed. I missed her. Little things that worried me before cancer no longer concerned me. I had much larger issues on my mind. I was never taught how to navigate life after cancer. 

One day, after I was declared to be in remission, I decided to open an Instagram account about my journey. I wanted to share my story with others. The cancer community is the worst club to be in, but it has the best members. I met other survivors and created a bond with total strangers. Suddenly, I had something in common with people across the globe who I would’ve never connected with under usual circumstances. Our survivorship bonded us together. 

As you’re approaching the five-year survivorship mark, how does reaching that goal make you feel?

To be honest, I have a lot of emotions approaching this milestone. I’m grateful and thankful to be in remission and still cancer-free. But the survivor’s guilt weighs heavily on me. In the past week alone, I’ve had two friends pass away from cancer. Being in the cancer community can be heavy. It is hard for others who haven’t had cancer to understand how it feels.

I get to keep living my life while others still fight cancer, receive a metastatic diagnosis, or pass away from cancer. How do you not feel it? I’m a very empathetic person, and the unfairness of life is so hard to wrap my head around. That is when the survivor’s guilt hits.

Those who didn’t have cancer expected me to return to my old self immediately after treatment ended. “What do you mean you’ve changed?” Reaching this milestone is making me reflect on the past 6 and ½ years of my breast cancer journey. Life after cancer made me reevaluate the relationships I had with family and friends while also placing necessary boundaries. Will cancer ever leave my mind? No. It will always be there. But as a religious person, I’ve learned how to give my fears to God. If I worry about cancer 24/7, I won’t be able to live a full life.

I’ve shared my cancer story through social media, podcasts, interviews, and at hospitals. I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with companies and nonprofits to raise cancer awareness. When I opened my Instagram account, I had only hoped to share my story with a small group of people. I had no idea how far this would go. I never thought an organization like IHadCancer would reach out to me or share my story. Sharing my vulnerability in posts becomes healing because I’m putting myself out there. The readers can relate and will comment about how hearing my words makes them feel less alone. I also enjoy using the power of makeup to share my vulnerability.

Being in the cancer world taught me resiliency, confidence, transparency, and vulnerability. Before cancer, all my social media pages were private. Now, I have a public page where I share some parts of my life, advocacy, and my health. Cancer taught me that life is short, and being able to advocate for my community became even more important. Seeing people receiving the worst news of their lives in the same office where I’m receiving good news about my progress was hard. I wanted to be a light in the cancer community during those hard days. 

Over the past five years, I have dedicated a lot of my time to advocacy work in the cancer community. Part of life as an advocate is also knowing when it’s time to step back into a lesser role. Everyone has a different relationship with advocacy, but for me, I need to take a step back. It’s not a negative reflection on the cancer community but simply a part of the advocacy life cycle. I want to be more present in my offline life for my family and local community. 

I won’t hang up my advocacy coat completely. I will just change it to focus more on local opportunities in person. There’s something about speaking to people in person, face-to-face, and giving them a hug. Reminding them that things can get better, even though nothing seems OK right now.

I also don’t want to be defined as just a cancer survivor. I don’t want people to look at me and see “cancer.” There’s so much more to Ria than that. When I created my handle “@thisgirlisthriving” I didn’t just mean thriving from cancer. I’m thriving when it comes to multiple things in my life. 

As the years went by, I found out what works for me in order to heal. Exercise, therapy, and makeup are my go-tos. I try to do things that will bring me joy in the present. Every year is different, a new shift in my life. It’s a roller coaster ride, but finding balance and healing is key to surviving life after cancer. Find your support system. Share your story because you can be the guiding light for someone entering the same situation you just survived. Being vulnerable is hard and can reopen scars for some, but it personally helped me heal. Cancer in media is almost always used as some sort of “tragic ending” for a character. But cancer was just a part of my story. Others entering the cancer world need to be able to visualize what the rest of their life could look like.

What was your initial cancer journey before breast cancer? 

I’m also not just a breast cancer survivor but also a skin cancer survivor. Before breast cancer, I had two surgeries to remove my skin cancer. Many places, unfortunately, don’t want to hear my skin cancer story. I get it; my breast cancer journey was much longer. I experienced more trauma through chemo and even more invasive surgeries. But to me, all cancers are the same. We can’t label certain people as having “good” or “better” cancers.

Where have you found support after cancer? 

Social media was a great source of support. I’ve connected with so many survivors online. If I had cancer in the pre-social-media age, I wouldn’t have been able to make such valuable connections so easily. I’ve shared my story so many times now that I can literally send links to anyone who DMs me about my cancer journey. My story lives in many different places. 

Nevertheless, social media can also be a place of heaviness and comparison. When you’re in the cancer community, you start peeling back the layers like an onion. You see the pain others are going through. A large part of existing within the cancer community on social media is teaching yourself not to compare. Everyone’s story may have similar aspects, but they are each very different from one another.

A message to the cancer community: 

For anyone trying to navigate life and find themselves again after cancer, don’t rush to heal and get things done quickly. Healing isn’t a straight line, and everyone’s healing looks different. Your healing process will be different than another person’s. Your survivorship will look different when compared to another person’s survivorship. You’ll have to face a lot of internal grief, and it’s hard not to compare yourself to others, but it’s something you have to learn not to do. Your story matters, but it’s also personal. You don’t owe anyone your scars or your bare chest. You can share or not share in your most authentic way. If you’re not comfortable or ready, then don’t feel pressured to share. 

Even after five years, my grief comes and goes. But I have a better handle on the overall grieving process than when I first started this survivorship journey. My cancerversary, diagnosis, and surgery dates will be ingrained in my brain forever. I’ve learned how to let myself feel those feelings instead of slapping a band-aid over them and then picking myself back up again. It’s important for a cancer survivor to be able to face those traumas. Seek help, whether it’s in the cancer community or through a counselor or therapist. Find someone to speak to and vent to.

Just because life-altering things happen doesn’t mean that life is going to stop. Life is going to keep going, and you just have to learn. Learning to live life with difficulties is a skill. You can’t just stop; you have to keep moving forward. While I, of course, wish that I never had cancer, cancer taught me key lessons. Cancer taught me how to form boundaries and that “I am enough.” Cancer taught me how to be grateful and what a blessing life is. It’s a privilege to get older, and you just have to take everything in. It doesn’t matter what challenges you have in life; you learn to move with those challenges and continue to thrive.

Photo courtesy of author.