Singer Normani, 26, Reveals How ‘Scared And Helpless’ She Felt During Her Mom’s Breast Cancer Battle

“I was in Los Angeles when I found out my mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer again. My family was back in Houston. Three weeks earlier, when I was visiting my mom at home, she'd fallen into my arms expressing how scared she was,” Normani, who has proudly served as an ambassador for the American Cancer Society (ACS) for several years, said in an op-ed for Elle magazine. “She had a gut feeling about the results. I felt incredibly helpless because I wasn't able to cure her.”

She continued, “I could not change the circumstances. I also had to cope alone, thousands of miles away from my family. My mother and I couldn't hold each other the way we both needed to.”

“That day was my worst nightmare. I always said that unfortunately (but fortunately), the first time we experienced this, I was young, and not fully able to grasp the severity of the situation. This time around, I was. I really struggled across the board,” Normani explained.

Normani recalled working on her debut album at the time of her mom’s second diagnosis, noting that the thought of finishing the album “seemed very unrealistic” because her only concern at the time was her mom.

And although her mom reassured her that she would still be around once her album dropped, Normani “felt conflicted.”

“On one hand, I needed to be home with my family, but on the other, she needed me to stay on track. But I believed my mom every single time she said that she would have victory over this illness. My faith and God's grace on my family helped me keep my feet on solid ground. I really could have lost my mind, but He granted me a sound mind and hopeful spirit throughout our journey,” she wrote.

Normani also wrote about how there are two different experiences when a close relative is diagnosed with cancer.

“You have to honor both experiences: the one who is enduring and the one who is doing their best to support. My mom is incredibly independent and self-sufficient, so seeing her break down and not be able to function was really painful. Implementing normalcy and taking her out of reality was important. She didn't want to be coddled or feel like a burden,” Normani explained.

“We did our best to make sure she felt like not much had changed. You acknowledge the circumstances, but you don't constantly remind someone or dwell on the current reality. You also have to take care of yourself in order to be that support system for someone in such a fragile statenot only physically but spiritually, emotionally, and mentally,” she added.

Now, Normani is urging others to look for changes in their breasts and see a doctor when something feels off.

Hamilton's Cancer Past

Earlier this year, Normani called her mom "the strongest woman that I know" and a "warrior" in the comments of the Instagram post announcing her mom’s diagnosis.

Prior to that, Normani spoke about her mom's previous breast cancer diagnosis in an interview with Paper magazine in 2018.  She said, "My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was around five years old," said Normani. "It was the scariest point in all of our lives."

Hamilton sat in on the interview, too, and said, "I didn't know much about breast cancer and though I was always educated by my doctors to do my self breast exams and everything, I took it for granted. You can kind of turn a blind eye until it actually happens to you. I was about 33 years old and I wasn't doing my breast exams on a regular basis."

Related: Getting to Know Your Breasts with Self-Exams

"I don't know what it was but something told me to check that day that I found the lump. I immediately went to the doctor. By doing my own self-breast exam I caught it at an early stage."

Close the Gap: Black Women & Breast Cancer

Hamilton is a Black woman, and statistically, Black women have to wait longer for treatment and their mortality rate is higher than that of white breast cancer patients. This is unacceptable and it's something we must work together to fix.

Related: Close the Gap: Racial Disparities in Cancer Care Are Devastating Let's Change Things

SurvivorNet is committed to closing the racial gap that exists in cancer care in America, and has partnered with NYU Langone Health's Perlmutter Cancer Center to help close the gap in prevention, care, and survival rates. Cancer survival rates are higher for white people than for Black people in the U.S., and that simply must change.

Dr. Anita Johnson, chief of surgery at Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Atlanta. told SurvivorNet,  "When it comes to breast cancer, the mortality rates for African American women are substantially higher than Caucasian women."

“They [African American women] often present with triple-negative breast cancer, which is a more aggressive type of breast cancer, which always requires chemotherapy and has a higher recurrence rate,” Dr. Johnson said.

Dr. Johnson Explicitly Lays Out Ways We Can Close the Gap in Racial Disparity: "Access to Care is Key!"

Fighting Breast Cancer Together

As Normani and her mom reckon with this health news, Hamilton clearly has the love and support of her daughter through this journey. Supportive community be it family, friends, or partner is beneficial on the cancer journey.

Related: Shannen Doherty's Dear Friend is Perfect Example of the Kind of Sisterhood of Support Needed When Battling Metastatic Breast Cancer

And while the weight is on the patient's shoulders, it may feel less heavy with others undergoing the emotional journey with you.

The survival rates for breast cancer vary, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS), depending on the type and stage of breast cancer. And while we don't know what stage her mom's cancer is in, the "relative survival rate" is five years for breast cancer, from the time of diagnosis. But, clearly, Hamilton is a fighter and survivor. And we'll be rooting for her and Normani on this journey.

Dr. Elizabeth Comen Explains Breast Self-Exams

Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff

Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.

---