Hello my name is Gloria, I was in my mid 50s when I found a lump in my right breast in September 2018 and was diagnosed with breast cancer the following month in October. It was a total shock and the icing on the cake, at a time in my life that had been so difficult I didn’t know how i was going to cope. Nothing prepares you for those words, You have cancer. I just cried. I had a single mastectomy & implant 2019 which I hated and couldn’t look at myself for ages. I went on to have DEIP reconstruction 2020 which was surgery that used my own tissue and fat to make a new boob & nipple reconstruction 2021.
My amazing mum looked after me after my surgeries which was so wonderful I just cried when she left. My daughter was almost 16 and at the stage where she was finding teenage life difficult. Our relationship was so strained I thought i was going mad. I just thought life couldn’t get any worse. I was alone with a teenager and now a cancer diagnosis. My family were not close by so I went to all my hospital appointments alone and felt I had to be strong around my daughter, she knew that I was upset but I kept the crying ’til I was on my own.
Talking to a teenager about such a difficult situation when they are going through big life changes themselves is so tough. The hug my daughter gave me when I told her I had cancer was so beautiful it had been a while. She was getting ready for her GCSEs and was very Stressed. As a mother it was important that I told her what I was going through but in a way that could put her mind at ease, it wasn’t easy.
I went from being told I would have a lumpectomy, which was not so invasive, to needing a mastectomy and loosing my nipple. I had more surgery to give me a new nipple and on my other breast to make them look similar. I was heart broken. But through it all, having my daughter to think about made me stronger, I had to think of her as well as myself.
Thank you, Ines, you have been my rock at the most difficult time in my life. Breast cancer broke me but has also been the making of me, I live my life in the best way I can to enjoy it as much as I can. It has brought with it some amazing opportunities and beautiful friendships I would never had made without this diagnosis, it’s also made me love & appreciate me.
