Firstly, there may not be a lump.

One Sunday in October 2013 I was lying reading and my left breast suddenly felt uncomfortably warm – like after you have been in the sun for too long. There were no other symptoms and the feeling went away after an hour. I thought that perhaps I should go for an examination, as I had not done so for two years. Within a few days I saw my General Practitioner, who felt a small lump which she firmly believed was a cyst – something I had had a number of times previously. However, at age 45 and because I had never had a mammogram (bad, bad me!), she sent me off to the radiologist. The mammographer was lovely, and surprisingly she didn’t hurt me – not something I can say about many of the mammo-ladies I would meet on my booby check-ups. The mammogram was clear – no lumps: yay!

Secondly, double check and have a sonar.

My lovely GP had insisted that I had a sonar – that cold gooey gunk we know from pregnancies. As I lay on the bed, watching the mammo-lady smooth the probe over my left breast, over and over again, I instinctively knew that she had seen something. When she said she needed a radiologist to look and assist I went cold and became nauseas. The latter instructed that an immediate biopsy was required the next day.

I went for the biopsy. They struggled to get any tissue and broke two needles in the process. After 40 minutes it was over. I was told to expect a call from my GP in a few days. I went home that afternoon emotional and frightened. I remember my daughter, who was nine, seeing the small plaster on my left breast and asking what happened. Eric and I had agreed that we wanted to alert her to the possibility of me being sick, but without scaring her needlessly. So this was an opportunity to tell her that I had found a sore on my breast, which I have had checked out and we are waiting for the results. I immediately realized that I needed to quickly get on top of how to assist children whose parents are diagnosed with cancer, particularly because one of her class-mates’ mother had died of cancer two months earlier.

Thirdly, get the best team on your side.

The next day my GP phoned. She was crying. She confirmed that she had the mammo and sonar results and that it seemed pretty certain that I had cancer, but she was still waiting for the results of the biopsy to give a final diagnosis. I received the final confirmation at 11:00 on Friday, 25 October. My GP immediately got me an appointment to see a surgeon that afternoon, and by 15:00 my diagnosis was complete.

At this stage we had no idea whether the cancer had spread anywhere, whether it was in my lymphs or glands close to my breast, or the stage of the cancer. Eric and I agreed that given my age, the age of our child and our relationship we wanted to tackle this thing as aggressively as possible. The surgeon, another wonderful woman, went through all options and I recall saying to her that if she was telling me that I was dying from cancer I would lose it completely, but if the worst she could tell me was to consider a mastectomy, then I was good to go. By the time we had finished I was scheduled for a mastectomy on Monday 28 October at 16:00 and would follow that up with chemotherapy, and radiation if needed. At a later stage a colleague of mine joked that I was the only person he knew who had cancer for a weekend! Hmmm. 

The outcome was that my early diagnosis resulted in me having a Stage 2 (only just), hormone positive, non-invasive ductal carcinoma, with no metastizing. In other words I was healthier on 29 October than the previous day and I had managed to control this disease.

Six weeks after my mastectomy, I started chemo. I was referred to the most wonderful oncologist at the George GVI Oncology practice, supported by a team of nurses and sisters in the chemo-room without whom I wouldn’t have been able to cope.

Especially with what was coming at me two months later. When my husband and mother were killed in a car accident.