I found a lump, for the third time in my life, a fortnight before Christmas 2021. I’d had the previous two lumps checked out and knew they were nothing to worry about. This lump, situated under the underwire of my bra on my left breast, felt different. I made an appointment with my GP who referred me to the breast clinic.

The day of the appointment I went along, discussed the family history of breast cancer and had an ultrasound and mammogram. Then I had a biopsy and was advised to prepare for a cancer diagnosis when the results came through.

A week later my husband and I found ourselves sat in a room with a very lovely Irish consultant who told us ‘its not good news, I’m afraid’. My husband’s head fell into his hands and I knew how I reacted in that moment would govern how I handled this. I took a deep breath and asked the doctor what we were going to do about it.

The weeks that followed were a whirlwind of appointments, blood tests and scans. In an odd way, that helped because it gave me smaller things to focus on and broke up the time before chemotherapy started. We discovered that the cancer was the size of a malteser and had spread to my lymph nodes. The doctor’s best guess was that it had been growing for about 5 months.

I could go into detail about treatment – which in my experience, was nothing like on TV. Instead I want to talk about what really mattered to me and what pulled me through. At the time, our daughter was seven. Telling her was one of the harder moments but we knew it was important to include her and alleviate her fears. We gave her small jobs to help:

1. She chose a cuddly toy and named it. She slept with it every night to fill it with her love. I would then take Love the Fox to appointments and surgery so I had her love with me.
2. Before each surgery or chemotherapy appointment she would write me a letter. Some were just pictures, sometimes she created puzzles for me, some she wrote that she loved me or wrote jokes. I read each one during the appointment.
3. When I had to have injections she had the job of cleaning the area and holding my hand.

I have a friend who made me humorous t shirts for appointments. One said ‘secretly hoping chemotherapy gives me superpowers’, another said ‘my oncologist does my hair’. The one I wore for my mastectomy said ‘chin up, tits out’.

I was also advised to start a Facebook page. Not to gather followers or for cancer fame. But so I wouldn’t have to keep giving the same information out to people. I didn’t want my whole life to become talking about cancer. It made sense to have a page with information that everyone could access. I also used it as a sort of journal to document my thoughts. Our family motto in that time became ‘get in, get on, get out’ so that was the name of the page.

I also found that I suddenly had time on my hands. I took up needlepoint as it was a hobby I could get lost in but it was also easy to put down. A friend of mine made the Taj Mahal out of Lego while she was going through treatment. Another woman I met made scrapbooks for her children. We all found ways to occupy our minds without exerting too much energy.

Energy was in short supply so I decided to try and avoid wasting it. For me, fear, anger, denial and negativity would be a waste of my energy. So I made the choice to confront this with humour, love, hope, joy and positivity. Some days that was easier to do than others!

I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for my aunt and her constant nagging at me to check myself. I was diagnosed at 37 years old. I was the only one of my friends who regularly checked myself. If I hadn’t done that, the lump wouldn’t have been found and I wouldn’t have been here to see my daughter’s 10th birthday. Whether I checked myself or not, the cancer was still there and it was still going to grow. It’s because I checked myself and then went to the GP that I had a chance to fight. Checking or not checking won’t change whether cancer is growing. It will very likely change the outcome though!

Finally, I have never used the phrase ‘cancer journey’. It’s taken me some time to work out why I didn’t like the expression and I’ve come to a realisation. When you go on a journey you are going somewhere. The entire point of this was that I wasn’t going anywhere! I refer to it as an experience – hopefully a once in a lifetime one!