Katy Simmons

Pregnancy lumps and bumps, that's all it was meant to be. I was told by a midwife and a GP that it was nothing to worry about. However, the pain continued, and that lump I could feel wasn't like the others, so I went back, just in case. I was told it's probably just pregnancy lumps and bumps, but we'll refer you anyway, just in case. The breast surgeon repeated the same thing, but we'll do an ultrasound it anyway, just in case.

"We'll ring you with the results."

Only they didn't ring me with the results, they called me to ask me to come in. I knew then, without anything being said, that it was cancer.

I was 30 years old, 32 weeks pregnant and I had breast cancer.

Cancer. The one word you do not want to hear, ever.

Grade 3 invasive ductal carcinoma, HER2+. I'd never even heard of that before, I didn't know there were different types of breast cancer, now I had an information booklet on it and all I could think was, how do I tell my mum? That, and I should probably write a will.

I had another 5 biopsies taken, 6 mammograms, and an MRI, they couldn't do all the scans because I was pregnant, and it wasn't safe for the baby.

The good news was that it hadn't spread, and I was late in my pregnancy so they could wait until I had the baby before starting treatment, although they still wanted him to come as early as possible. The complicated news was that I also had triple negative breast cancer, meaning treatment wouldn't be straightforward, like any of this was straightforward in the first place!

So, at 37 weeks pregnant, I had a C-section, 5 days later I had a contrast MRI, 1 week after that I started chemotherapy and what would be the hardest year of my life. Thank goodness newborns only want to eat and sleep, because I didn't have the energy to do either. I had 6 cycles of two different types of chemotherapy and targeted therapy, a mastectomy and reconstruction. I lost all of my hair, lost 20% of my body weight, I lost all of my maternity leave to cancer. I lost myself. It wasn’t over, though; there were another 7 cycles of chemotherapy and another 12 rounds of targeted therapy.

I don’t know which sounded better, the bell or the words - clear margins, no lymph node involvement, no evidence of disease - the only words you want to hear after going to hell and back.

But I am back. I am recovering. I am lucky. And all I can say is, check your breasts, just in case.