"After cancer, I changed my life. I separated, I bought a house."

Helena Costa, actress and digital content creator, shared her life journey after discovering she had the disease at just 38 years old on the SIC Notícias and Expresso podcast, "I Have Cancer. What Next?", hosted by Sara Tainha.

The artist has twin daughters, Mercedes and Maria do Mar, who was only a year and a half old when her mother was diagnosed. And that was what was most difficult for her throughout her journey.

Learning about the disease was "scary" and even today he feels "an aversion" to the word cancer.

"The fear that the disease will return is real, so we have to have a healthy lifestyle. This ended up making me more alert to be able to be here for many more years."

How did the diagnosis come about?

Helena was working on a soap opera when she began to experience a symptom that put her on alert.

"I had a normal lifestyle, I had recently become a mother, and I was working on a soap opera. I was wheezing when I was breathing, and the pulmonologist said it was asthma." Later, "the doctor looked at the CT scan and saw a small spot [...] the bronchoscopy diagnosed a carcinoid tumor" (a cancer not related to tobacco use).

Her daughters Maria do Mar and Mercedes were what worried her.

For the actress, her twin daughters were what worried her most, as they were only a year and a half old when the diagnosis came.

"My daughters were the only thing that mattered to me. Knowing that there might be a deadline and that they would grow up without a mother. Living with a deadline was bad, it worried me. It was one of the most painful things because no one will love them as much as I do."

The actress had the support of three key people: her husband at the time, businessman Frederico Formigal, whom she married in 2018, her sister, and her best friend, actress Mariana Monteiro.

The change in Helena Costa's life: The separation and departure from soap operas

After the surgery, Helena still took some time to recover. But once the worst was over, she felt she had to change her life because it was urgent to be happy.

"Suddenly we realize that life is finite and that there is no time to waste. And that it could be sooner, time flies. I changed a lot in my life and realized that I will live to be happy. I will live to be happy.

It was here that I made several decisions, turning my life upside down. I can't complain about much, but at the time, it made sense to separate, to buy my own house, to do things with the girls my way. [...] The illness may have been the impetus for the separation, but things weren't going well. It made me not waste time.

In addition to her personal life, her professional life also underwent a change . Helena stepped away from soap operas because they require a lot of work, and she wanted to spend quality time with her daughters.

" I never wanted to do a soap opera again because soap operas take up a lot of time, from eight in the morning to nine at night, plus an hour each way. Many hours without seeing my daughters, without having vacations. From Monday to Friday, it's a long time. It's more than 12 hours a day, we work for others, doing what others want and I don't want that, I want to be me. [...] I gained strength to do other things" , revealed Helena Costa.

Listen to the interview here .