Finding a lump

A few days before surgery I had some photos taken. My last days with breasts.

I found the lump in my left breast myself, while in the shower. And, honestly, I just ignored it for a bit.

It was just this funny little pea under my skin. Tiny. I would play with it at night and roll it under my finger as I fell asleep. Looking back, I was in total denial. I was also drowning in life. Our twins were just three. My husband was away at work a lot. I was consumed with solo parenting and, at 45 years old, I was battling with peri-menopause symptoms, including night sweats, rage and insomnia. I was barely keeping my head above water. The last thing I needed was a medical thing to worry about.

After a month or so, I finally mentioned it to my doctor. She told me it was probably nothing but sent me for a scan anyway. The radiologist told me it was probably ‘something’ but that it was too small to biopsy, so to come back in three months. I did my best to forget about it. The kids were my priority and I didn’t have the time or the mental energy for me to be ill.

When I went back for a mammogram in November 2021, I finally clocked the concerned faces. ‘Micro-calcification’ ‘Need to biopsy’ ‘Think we’ll need to remove it’ ‘Don’t delay’. It was getting cold and dark, Christmas was looming, my husband was away and I finally acknowledged that this might be something to worry about.

When the call came with the biopsy results, on the 21st December 2021 (a date I will never forget), I wasn’t hugely surprised to hear the word cancer. But I still wasn’t too concerned. The doctor said simply ‘there are some cancerous cells, you need to stop HRT immediately’, which I’d started just a few months ago. To be honest, I was more pissed off about that than anything else.

A close friend and my mum had both had breast cancer. Their treatment paths had been straightforward : lumpectomy, radiotherapy and Tamoxifen for a few years. Neither of them had had any major issues or a recurrence. I figured that would be my path too. Just a bump in the road.

Little did I know …