'No-one has to go through this alone' - Offaly cancer survivor launches support app
Cancer survivor Vanessa Mooney has launched a cancer support app, ‘Someone Like Me’, to help others who have received a cancer diagnosis.
The Tullamore woman says cancer changed her life, but also the way she sees what happens after a diagnosis and “the feeling that your whole life has suddenly changed”.
Vanessa was diagnosed with breast cancer at 40 and says that during that time, she discovered just how important it is to have people around you who get it.
Around the same time, her sister Von was diagnosed with lung cancer.
Vanessa says: “We understood each other in a way that nobody else could”.
Sadly, her much-loved sister didn’t survive and Vanessa says “it nearly broke me”.
However, she said she had to keep pushing ahead, particularly for her family and her mother.
“I kept thinking about how many people are diagnosed with cancer every single day… and how many of them are sitting there wondering, ’Who do I talk to? Who understands what I’m going through? Where are the people who just get it?’ That’s why I created Someone Like Me,” she explained in a social media post.
Vanessa describes the app as a cancer community built to connect people who understand because they’ve been there too.
She said it is an app for everyone, whether you’re newly diagnosed, living with cancer, in remission, or supporting someone you love.
“And importantly… Someone Like Me is free. Because I don’t believe support and connection should depend on what you can afford,” Vanessa said.
Outlining her motivation, she says: “I can’t change what happened to me. I can’t bring my sister back. But I can try to change what happens to the person diagnosed after me”.
It is important for people facing cancer to know that they are not alone, Vanessa said.
You can find ‘Someone Like Me’ on the App Store or Google Play.