Designer Creates Fashionable Blouse For Woman Battling Breast Cancer

Being diagnosed with breast cancer is devastating. It’s not the news anyone wants to get, but there is hope with treatment.

According to cancer.org, the average 5-year survival rate with a breast cancer diagnosis is 90% with treatment.

An estimated 257,300 people are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, meaning that hundreds of thousands of people face chemotherapy treatment on an annual basis.

Anyone who has dealt with cancer knows that getting through the disease is only half the battle; getting through chemotherapy is a whole beast in itself. It causes awful side effects and can wipe the energy out of you. But beyond that, it’s also quite uncomfortable.

As breast cancer survivor Denise West shared with News 5 Cleveland, she became used to wearing the scrubs that she and other women had to use while undergoing chemotherapy. The scrubs are designed to make it easy for physicians to access the chemo port, but West said they’re also very uncomfortable.

Since she was spending so much time in the scrubs that she hated, she went on a search for something more comfortable and more stylish. She wanted to feel good about what she was wearing while working through such a hard thing. “I wanted something to be classy, to make a woman feel good,” West said to the news outlet.

After an internet search turned up nothing, West decided to take things into her own hands. She reached out to a Cleveland fashion designer, Diane Linston, and the two partnered up to create fashionable, functional, and comfortable chemotherapy blouses.

They worked together to create a shirt with Velcro openings in the front and on the sides so women could have something to wear aside from the scrubs. The blouses were even designed with matching headscarves!

The woman used a focus group to help fine-tune the design. Speaking with News 5 Cleveland, West said, “We just wanted to get their input on the idea of would you buy this.”

The pair hope to have their blouses sold in hospital gift shops, as well as have them listed online. Manufacturing delays and COVID-19 have slowed their progress, but they plan to have an online shop available soon.

Watch the interview below:

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