womanthismonth.com | OCTOBER 2026 STORIES OF STRENGTH 85 Patrícia Dancing with Shadows STORIES OF STRENGTH Bahrain-based Brazilian writer Patrícia Matos de Farias was diagnosed with breast cancer in February 2024. Her book Cerzideira: Stitching with Threads of Memory includes a chapter titled Attraversiamo, dedicated to this journey. On a Friday morning, in the throes of heavy traffic, I answered a phone call that changed my life. For about a year, I had noticed a change in the size of one breast. I thought it could have been a symptom of perimenopause or a hormonal change. My doctor’s voice cut through the noise, delivering the results of my latest check-up: “It’s breast cancer, but you’re going to be okay.” He kept talking, but his voice felt far away. The diagnosis sounded like a death sentence at the time. I underwent a mastectomy first. Chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy followed in the months that came. As the seasons changed, I searched for myself in the mirror. I watched my hair disappear, my skin tone change and my body buckle in the face of relentless nausea and persistent aches. Something shifted, however, when I began to open myself up to the stories of other women living with cancer. These women inspired me to recognise that while I remained terrified, my will to survive was stronger still. I decided to court my diagnosis over tea. I remember talking to those sick cells often, sometimes at length. I told them it was either them or me, and that I was not willing to back down without a fight. When my chemotherapy came to an end, an opportunity emerged for my family to move from Brazil to Bahrain. That December, I arrived in the Kingdom with a renewed sense of grit. I resolved to trust that life would be good to me. I would stand firm on the sand. I would dance in tandem with my shadows. My preventive treatment is still ongoing and so are my conversations with the disease that flipped my life on its head. Writing has allowed me to reckon with what I have lived through. It only felt natural, then, to dedicate a chapter of my book to this journey. I named it Attraversiamo, an Italian word meaning “let’s cross over”, in recognition of the transformations that can find us when we least expect them. My hope is to remind other women that as long as they hold on to their faith and remain fierce in the face of what lies ahead, they have the strength to overcome even the darkest moments. Today, I can recognise how profoundly my experience has transformed me: I move through life with greater lightness and maturity, able to comprehend the weight of the little things that most of us take for granted. My hair is long again. I look in the mirror and find myself once more. I am not the same woman who answered that phone call on a Friday morning. And I cannot help but like the woman I became along the way. Patricia
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