I am * Julie, 29 years old, real estate lawyer by training. I was 27 years old when I was diagnosed with HER2 positive (hormone-dependent) grade III breast cancer.

I was returning from four days of vacation in Paris. It was a Wednesday and an acquaintance I had at the hospital had managed to have my biopsy results well in advance. She then asked me to go so that I could see a doctor who was going to explain to me what was going on.

It was the cold shower. From that moment everything went very fast because it was not necessary to waste time.

"I felt a big ball in my left breast"

It all started in February 2015. At the time, I felt a discomfort in the passage of whales from my bra. I started looking for what was bothering me and I felt a big ball in my left breast. I ended up showing it to my mother who then urged me to go back to see my gynecologist. She was worried.

Having a very busy job, I tended to let this kind of thing hang around. Not to mention that I was light years away from thinking it could be cancer since there was never one in my family. My mother, she did not let anything go. She sent me a message every day to find out if I had made an appointment with the doctor. I ended up getting tired of her texting and after a few days I executed myself.

My mother gave me life, but she also saved my life!

Chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormone therapy ...

She was very present throughout the treatment. She came to each of my chemos (I did 8 sessions one every 3 weeks, followed by 40 radiotherapy sessions as part of the "Bérénice" clinical trial). Each time, she stayed for days locked up with me while I was curing the treatments to keep me company, to make me to eat and to tidy up the apartment. It was my guardian angel.

On the friends side, I lost some in the battle. It is in difficult times that we realize the true faces of people around us, near and far.

Since February 1, 2016 I started hormone therapy, a capsule to take every day for at least 5 years.

Learn to manage your image during illness

If I have never felt any lack in medical support - I was very well supported at the Center Antoine Lacassagne in Nice - it is the lack of information on the management of its image during these heavy treatments which embarrassed me the most.

So, we try to inform as we can. Except that the photos found on the net when you type "breast cancer" or "alopecia" ... Absolutely everything put me on the sidelines. I could not project myself into the images I saw.

I wanted to show that it is more than possible to keep her femininity, and to remain beautiful

"With the blog, I decided to show everything"

During my treatments I decided to create a blog (www.feminityandjy.tumblr.com), to share my tips beauty, well being and good mood, because it is also good for health! It finally turned out therapeutic for me to help other women who lived the same thing as me.

I wanted to show that despite the treatments, which deprive us for a time of what makes us women, it is more than possible to keep her femininity, and stay beautiful. So I decided to show everything and tell everything, so that the image that returns the disease is less difficult to wear in the daily life of this parenthesis "disenchanted".

Feel good about yourself to keep your spirits up

When I lost my hair 15 days after my first chemo for example, I could not put my wig because it was just not me. It was out of the question for me to wear the caps of cancer because it was too "sick".

In short, I learned the knots of turbans, which I adorned "false fringes".

People who did not know I was sick never realized it, thinking that I had just adopted a new style that suited me and became my trademark. It was important for me to return this image. I feel that feeling good about yourself is essential to the morale, which is itself essential for better living treatments, which are essential for healing.

Julie Meunier / Femininity & JY

"I'm starting my own line of fringes and turbans"

Thanks to this blog, I was able to set up my workshop "La tête dans les nouages" at the Alpes-Maritimes cancer league, in partnership with the brand "American Vintage" which gave me a donation of 250 turbans so I can hold workshops once a month while stocks last. I also write a short beauty column for "Rose Magazine".

And especially, I launched my own line of fringes and turbans: an alternative to the hair prosthesis for women and girls called "Les Franjynes" .

Today, I feel good, even if every day when I wake up I have pains, stigmas left by the treatments. No matter, I'm happy to be alive.