The Suffering for Discovering Breast Cancer: How the Diagnosis is Experienced by the Woman

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to understand and to describe the experience of breast cancer diagnosis lived by the woman. It was adopted a qualitative approach theoretically based on Symbolic Interactionism under an Interpretive Interacionism methodology. For data collection, interviews were done from 1996 to 1998 with six women, who did biographical narratives. Analysis of the narratives allowed to identify units of experience integrated in different themes: discovering herself as a woman that has cancer, wishing to get rid of the disease, being helped for not give up, trying to adapt herself to the new identity. The themes’ description facilitated the understanding of woman experience coping with the diagnosis starting from the elements, which compose her suffering: surprise, fear and learning.