LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- From brunette to blonde to bald, hair is a visible part of the battle with cancer. But a young breast cancer survivor in Louisville used humor and positivity to pull through even on her worst days.
These days, Jamie Briglio can get dressed up and curl her hair but said the cancer left its mark after the fight for her life. There are scars you can see and scars that you can't, she said, but it's the scars that tell her story.
Briglio's fight started the day after Christmas in 2020 during a self-check.
"I said 'Oh my goodness,' I feel a lump,'" she said.
About a month later, she was told that lump was breast cancer.
"I was like 'How am I going to tell my family? How am I going to tell my parents?' What am I going to do?'" Briglio said. "And then I just felt this moment of — you are a strong woman. You are not going to let this take over."
Two days before her 40th birthday, Briglio started 20 weeks of chemo. Then came surgery and radiation and six months of chemo pills.
With the idea of her hair falling out, she decided to have a little fun with it.
"I shaved the entire underneath of my hair," she said. "And I dyed the entire top blonde. I was trying actually to go for grey because it looked very cool in a picture. And then when I went to get it done, the poor girl spent about seven hours on my hair."
Then came the first round of chemo. Briglio was tired and weak but still walked every day around St. Michael's Cemetery.
"I would pray to all the people — the souls that were there — and I would just ask them to take care of me and all of my people," she said. "I would ask them to take care of me, and it was a really comforting experience. But when I started that second round of treatment, I was really sick in a way that I still, to this day, don't have words for.
"I felt like my body was half gone. I don't know. I really don't have words for it. I was so sick in a way that I have never experienced before in my life and I thought how am I going to actively chose to do this three more times?"
It was then that she decided breast cancer wasn't going to be the thing to take her.
"I just had this very strong determination to be healthy and to be myself as much as I could again," she said. "And so I fought through it."
On her good days, Briglio fully embraced life and traveled.
"We went out," she said. "We went to New Orleans. We went to Nashville."
By her side through the journey was her boyfriend, David Cole, who is bald.
"He would call us twins throughout the whole thing," she said. "And I said 'I don't mind being your twin in some ways but I don't want to be bald with you forever.'"
Through the weakness and bad days, Briglio accepted that maybe her cancer journey was in a way meant to be.
"Maybe this was why I had this experience so that I could someday empower other women to stay positive through something that feels impossible at a certain point," she said.
Briglio has been raising money and will participate in her first Susan G. Komen More than Pink Walk in Louisville.
"It is a very special group of people, and, while everyone's journey is different, it's amazing that you can find this commonality with people that you don't even know," she said. "Coming off of cancer people just think — oh you're good. You're fine. You're cured. But ... emotionally and mentally you might not actually feel as strong as other people see you as being."
Briglio wants to share what she has learned over the past four years.
"Do a self-check monthly, because I do think that it can make a huge difference," she said. "I found my cancer all on my own, just from accidentally adjusting myself into a sports bra."
She said everyone thinks about a self-check but encouraged others to actually do it.
The Susan G. Komen More than Pink Walk is Saturday, Oct. 12 at Louisville Slugger Field. WDRB is a proud sponsor of the event. To find out more and to donate, click here.
Copyright 2024 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
