“This project will be nothing without you,” I said to the four women who I met at Ljósið rehabilitation and support centre for cancer patients and their families, to talk to me about the experience of having to wear a drain, taps and tubes after mastectomy surgery. Little did I know that they would open my world up to the life of women with cancer diagnosis. After nearly two hours of stories, silences, a flood of questions, laughter and a few tears, I said goodbye to them, aware of the poverty of my words of gratitude. Not only had these women turned my project upside-down, they had also changed me – and on that day the Olga project was born.