Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Singer-Songwriter and Three-Time Cancer Survivor, Bianca Muñiz, Shares Her Story

A Note From Look Good Feel Better Executive Director, Louanne Roark

Bianca Muñiz is a singer, songwriter and fierce advocate for cancer survivorship and mental health awareness.  She’s also a three-time cancer survivor.  To hear Bianca’s story is to be inspired. To hear her music is to be moved. Deeply.   

We were honored to welcome Bianca to this year’s BeautyCare’s DreamBall where she shared her story and graced us with her music. I invite you to experience Bianca’s story for yourself, watch her performance, and read the message of hope, healing, and honesty she has shared with us as we mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month. 

Cancer Reveals Honesty

As a three-time survivor, I’m hard-pressed to think of anything positive to associate with cancer, save one.  Cancer brings honesty into sharp relief. With ourselves, our fragility and our strength. 

I was born with a mutated TP 53 gene, a rare irregularity that leaves me at higher risk of developing multiple forms of cancer.  It’s a genetic flaw that has lived up to its reputation.

When I was 11, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  Breast cancer when I was 22. A year ago, at the height of COVID-19, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. Each diagnosis, each surgery, each course of chemotherapy, has revealed more of my honest self.  I’ve gotten to know my body inside and out. I’ve learned to navigate the complex emotions that come with the uncertainty of another diagnosis.  I’ve tried to find and hold the honesty that cancer reveals – all the thoughts and feelings and struggles and hopes – to pour into my music.

It wasn’t my plan to become a cancer and mental health advocate. Honestly, all I wanted was to play Gabriella in my school’s production of “High School Musical.” I wanted to write and perform music for my friends and family. Cancer had other plans.  So, I sang my songs for the nurses who took care of me. I wrote music as a love letter to myself, to my body, as a reminder that I am worthy of love, despite what cancer might think.

Still, living in honesty is hard. Through my various rounds of chemotherapy, I’ve experienced all kinds of awful side effects. I’ve lost all my hair, including my eyebrows. I’ve even broken out in cystic acne.  In the midst of it, I’ve struggled to recognize myself, and have locked myself away – too embarrassed to go outside or be seen by anyone else. Seeing the brutal honesty of cancer in the mirror has overwhelmed my inner strength and resolve.

While experiencing these things, I tried to do what I could in the moment: I bought makeup online and attempted to draw on my eyebrows. Tried to cover up my acne with foundation and concealer. But I had no idea what I was doing.  Drawing on eyebrows is hard to get right. And using foundation to cover up acne did not go well.  I even tried to learn how to tie a turban around my head to make losing my hair more fun and fashionable.  I know now that I was trying to find a way to love myself again. 

Then I discovered Look Good Feel Better.  Here was a program that understands the honest impact of cancer, physically and emotionally.  And has built a community to help women like me see themselves again.  Like the music I have spent a lifetime writing, Look Good Feel Better is a love letter to women everywhere, reminding them that they are worthy, that they are cherished, and loved and beautiful – inside and out. 

I am so proud to be connected with this organization and was honored to perform for the hundreds of supporters and friends at this year’s BeautyCares DreamBall to benefit Look Good Feel Better. I hope my music and my story inspires them, and you, to support this program and women in cancer treatment everywhere.

Ways to support include referring people you know who can benefit from the program’s free services, volunteering your time, making a financial contribution to support the program’s ability to continue offering its free wrokshops and services; or if you are a hospital representative or health care provider, ensuring that Look Good Feel Better is an integral element of your cancer support program and a part of every patient’s treatment plan. 

Together, we can transform lives.