“I’m not a coder or developer, I’m an advocate. I look at the app as an advocacy tool that women can use to communicate with their physicians. I’m not a doctor and I’m not trying to be a doctor – my mission is to help women advocate for their breast health.”
Jessica Baladad is a breast cancer survivor who has created an app, called ‘Feel For Your Life’ which is available on both Apple and Android app stores.
According to the National Cancer Institute, breast cancer is one of the three most common cancers found in women.
A lot of the time people do not know they have it for the following reasons:
- Not knowing what to look out for
- Not knowing what to do if they had breast cancer
- Being scared to check in fear of bad results
- Never heard about the importance of self-examining
It takes a lot of courage and bravery to take the first step in finding out about your health. It’s not easy and it takes time, so don’t be too hard on yourself if it’s been a while since you had a check-up. Take it step by step and look out for resources such as this app that can help navigate you on your breast health.
‘Feel For Your Life’ was originally created during Baladad’s cancer journey as a social media project, where she could share her story and encourage other women to perform self-exams and make them aware of the importance in doing so. The idea to turn all of this into an app was when she was in the shower, said by her, “One night I was in the shower literally watching my life go down the drain as I watched my hair come off my head and the idea just came to me… I felt like I was called to do it.”
From then one she made it her mission to develop an app that has the potential of helping thousands.
The app requires a registration for checking your breasts and for features involving creating reminders. All information on the app is free to look at, it is purely an educational and awareness app. The first time you go on the app there is a section for getting started where you can enter what goals you wish to see from using this app, make sure these are goals that suit your health.
After doing your first assessment on the app, you’ll be asked to note the date and time and where it took place. Don’t forget to mention what your breasts are currently like (if it’s your first time doing a self-exam) or any changes you have noticed from previous assessments. Once this is done, you’ll be sent an email about the first assessment submission, with the details of the exam that you can then view at any time.
It would also be useful to set a monthly reminder for the next one, which can be easily done underneath the ‘check your breasts’ section.
‘Feel For Your Life’ is also very easy to use making it easily accessible for all ages.
While breast cancer isn’t as commonly found in men and this app is aimed to reach women it is still important to check your breast health regardless of your gender.
This app has the potential to save someone’s life.
All information on the app is fact checked and directly from the National Breast Cancer Foundation and Johns Hopkins Medicine.
If you enjoyed this article, why not check out our article on NHS Cancer Checks HERE
