Published Dec 28, 2020

Singer Rita Ora Says Mom’s Breast Cancer Diagnosis Led Her to Have Panic Attacks; Urges Women to Continue Screenings During the Pandemic

British singer Rita Ora's mom, Vera SahatÃ§iu, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005; the singer said it led her to have panic attacks and PTSD symptoms.

Anne McCarthy

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Vera's Breast Cancer Diagnosis

British singer Rita Ora’s mom says she experienced PTSD and panic attacks in the wake of her mother’s breast cancer diagnosis at the age of 53.
Ora’s family is Albanian From Kosovo and her mother, a psychiatrist, had no genetic history of breast cancer.
Ora is encouraging women to continue screening for the disease, especially during the pandemic.

A parent’s cancer diagnosis can be life-altering and British singer Rita Ora, 30, knows that firsthand; her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005. Ora says that diagnosis completely changed her life leading to panic attacks and PTSD, according to the British newspaper The Sun.

The singer also says the diagnosis has inspired her to try and raise awareness around the importance of breast cancer screenings, especially right now during the pandemic. "I see these things saying check yourself for lumps but my mother didn't have a lump she had a sharp pain, and she still went and got checked,” says Ora.

Related: Rita Ora Has Anxiety After Mom's Breast Cancer Diagnosis And She's Not Alone

Ora maintains she still check herself regularly. Genetically, there was no history of breast cancer in my family before my mother, but she still got it. There are loads of tutorials online which I have used. You have to be aware of your body. But you can also call your GP to ask. There are loads of ways of accessing the information. Scans in the UK have dropped eighty per cent since Covid struck, and a million women haven't had any check-ups,” Ora said.

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Breast Cancer Risk Factor: Family History

Ora’s mother, Vera SahatÃ§iu, 56, is an NHS (National Health Service) psychiatrist who fled Kosovo for political reasons, due to her Albanian background. She and her husband moved their family from Kosovo to London in 1991.

For her breast cancer diagnosis, SahatÃ§iu, underwent chemotherapy, radiation, and a partial mastectomy to treat the disease following her 2005 diagnosis. Ora knows that she has a higher breast cancer risk, due to her family history. The British singer said, “I have done the BRCA test (the hereditary breast cancer test) and the gene test myself and, luckily, I don't have the gene.”

The BRCA1 and BRCA2 is a genetic mutation that leads to a higher risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Dr. Rebecca Arend, an Associate Scientist at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, explained the genetic mutation in a previous interview, saying, “What a BRCA mutation is is it’s a defect in your ability to repair a double strand break. If you think about DNA being a double helix, that we’ve all learned about in basic science, if you have a single strand break, a PARP enzyme is needed to repair that single strand break.”

Related: Breast Cancer: Overview

“If you have a PARP inhibitor,” said Dr. Arend, “then you can’t repair that single strand break. And if you have a single strand break that’s not repaired, that actually leads to a double strand break. So when both of the arms of the DNA helix are broken, then your body has normal mechanisms for repairing that. One of them is called homologous recombination. And that’s your body’s natural way of repairing that break. But if you have a BRCA mutation, you actually cannot repair that break.”

What is a BRCA Mutation?

Coping with a Parental Cancer Diagnosis

As Ora expressed, dealing a parent or loved one’s cancer diagnosis is no easy feat. For the person diagnosed with the disease, they may experience depression, grief, and anxiety. But it also affects the cancer patient’s loved ones a great deal, too. Thankfully, there are tools and resources that can help make the process more manageable for all involved.

Camila Legaspi found that therapy was a life-saver for her after her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when Legaspi was in high school. Her mom passed away from the disease, and Legaspi turned to therapy to help process her grief and keep things in perspective. She said in a previous interview, “Therapy saved my life. I was dealing with some really intense anxiety and depression at that point. It just changed my life, because I was so drained by all the negativity that was going on. Going to a therapist helped me realize that there was still so much out there for me, that I still had my family, that I still had my siblings.”

“The reality is, is when you lose someone it’s really, really, really hard,” she said. “And it’s totally OK to talk to someone. And I’m so happy that I talked to my therapist. Keep your chin up, and it’s going to be OK. No matter what happens, it’s going to be OK.”

"Therapy Saved My Life": After Losing A Loved One, Don't Be Afraid To Ask For Help

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