The day I gave birth to my second son, my dad called me as I walked to the delivery room and told me the doctors had found some shadows on his lungs. Them shadows turned out to be stage four cancer. My dad lost his fight to cancer on his Birthday six months later. Eighteen months after my dads passing, out of nowhere my mum was diagnosed with stage 2 oesophageal cancer, unfortunately mums tumour was inoperable and though it was only stage two it was aggressive. My mummy lost her fight 8 months later in the first week of lockdown.
I spent every day trying to come to terms with what happened to my once very alive very vibrant parents, but eighteen months after my mums passing I found a lump in my breast and was diagnosed with triple negative stage two breast cancer and the BRACA 1 defect which I had inherited from my fathers side of the family. This defect means I had a 50-80% chance of developing ovarian cancer also. I was totally shocked, especially that my dad had told us that he wasn’t a carrier of the gene, unfortunately he hadn’t been honest about testing and at only 38 and a single mum of two I was in total panic.
I was told that triple negative breast cancer was a very aggressive form and that really scared me. However the thought of leaving boys scared me more . Fight or Flight mode activated and boy did I fight, In january this year I was pronounced cancer free after 26 rounds of what I’ve been told was one of the most strongest and gruelling chemotherapy regimes that lasted 5 months ; a double mastectomy and reconstruction and another preventative operation to remove my ovaries and fallopian tubes.
Having cancer is so hard but there so many factors that make it even more difficult. One of the things that made it feel really hard is the lack of representation cancer is a lonely experience and when there is hardly anyone around that you can relate too it makes it even more isolating. Losing my hair was quite traumatic for me, my MacMillan nurse gave me a booklet about hair loss and she also gave me a voucher that i could spend towards a wig in some shops listed in the booklet. None of these shops had wigs that almost looked like my hair, it even said in the booklet if you are black or asian you may want to do your own research. Which actually i did not want to do at that time. I spent £300 on my first wig and was unable to use my voucher. I still have the voucher till this very day.
I was also fast tracked into menopause due to treatment shutting down my ovaries and then having them removed, I definitely was not ready for that. Being a single mother and getting through treatment was rough and extremely lonely. I did attend a support group but again nobody there that looked like me. I’m originally from south London but now live in Liverpool, online it seemed like support groups for WOC were mostly London based.
