The Little Things That Help You Feel Like Yourself Again

By brittany cohen

On October 25, 2022, at 37 years old, my life changed forever. I was diagnosed with Stage 3C high-grade serous ovarian cancer.

Just nine days later, I underwent an 11-hour radical hysterectomy. Almost overnight, I was pulled into a world of oncology appointments, scans, pathology reports, and a language I never wanted to learn.

Then came eight months of chemotherapy.

Months of exhaustion, fear, and pushing myself forward when everything in me wanted to stop.

Chemotherapy saved my life, but it also took a lot from me. I lost my hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, and with them, a sense of normalcy I hadn’t realized I was holding onto so tightly.

There were moments I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror. Even knowing I was fighting for my life, those changes still affected me in ways I didn’t expect.

Around the same time, I learned I was BRCA2-positive. That added another layer to everything I was already navigating—turning my focus not only to treatment, but also to prevention and protecting my future.

Two years after chemotherapy, I underwent a double mastectomy with expanders, followed by reconstruction. It was another major surgery in a series of steps that often felt endless, but also necessary in taking back control where I could. I had some complications along the way.

Through all of this, I learned something I will never forget: when cancer takes so much, the “little things” are not little at all.

That is where Sharsheret came into my life.

They provided me with a human-hair wig and support for eyebrow microblading. To someone who hasn’t gone through chemotherapy, these may seem cosmetic. To me, they were everything.

The wig helped me feel like myself again when I looked in the mirror. The eyebrows brought expression back to my face. Together, they gave me a sense of confidence at a time when I felt like so much of my identity had been stripped away.

Sharsheret understood something essential—that cancer doesn’t only affect your body. It affects your identity, your confidence, and how you move through the world.

I finished chemotherapy in 2023. I was grateful, but I quickly learned that “done” doesn’t mean over. There are still scans, appointments, and the quiet, constant fear of recurrence.

I also took Lynparza for two years as maintenance therapy because of my BRCA2 mutation, another reminder that cancer doesn’t always have a clear ending.

Eventually, I closed that chapter too.

And today, I am here.

I am living. I am working. I am rebuilding. I am learning to appreciate the ordinary moments I once took for granted.

Cancer has changed me in ways I am still understanding. It taught me that life can shift in an instant, that strength can look like simply showing up, and that asking for help is not weakness.

Most importantly, it taught me that support can come in unexpected forms.

Sometimes it is medicine.

Sometimes it is family.

Sometimes it is a friend sitting beside you in silence.

And sometimes, it is a wig and a pair of eyebrows that help you feel like yourself again.

Those things may seem superficial to someone who hasn’t lived through it.

But when you’ve lost so much of yourself, they can give you something incredibly important back:

You.

I will always be grateful to Sharsheret for that.

They didn’t just see my diagnosis.

They saw me.

And I will never forget that.

If you are going through cancer treatment, please know this:

It is okay to care about how you look.

It is okay to want to feel like yourself.

It is okay to want normalcy in the middle of something anything but normal.

Sometimes, the smallest things are what help you keep going.