Phone in one hand, G&T in the other. Anxiety rife whilst I wait for my daughter to answer the phone, her not knowing it was going to start with, “I think you need to sit down”.

That long journey home finally came to an end, and as I got in through the door a large G&T was a priority whilst I prepared for that dreaded phone call with my daughter. Unbeknown to me, she had already texted my husband asking if I had gotten on okay as it was getting late, and like myself she had only expected me to be there for 40 or so minutes. I hadn’t been able to take calls to preserve the little battery I had left on my phone in preparation to make that call if needed. He had informed her of how I was still at the infirmary, and that it “wasn’t looking good”. Confused, she replied with “what’s not good, have they said anything?”, to which he responded, “don’t know for sure but they think it could be cancer”. At this point she waited to hear any confirmed news when I returned home, not wanting to jump the gun in case they determined otherwise.

Anxiously waiting during that dialling tone, she answers my call.

Understandably, none of us can remember explicitly what was said at this point but the gist was something like:

“Hi, are you okay, what have they said?”

“They’ve told me it’s breast cancer”

There is little to note about what was said next, bar sobbing and not really knowing how to respond to such news. My concerns and fear of cancer were quickly abandoned, and my new focus was on my daughter.

Her recollection is as follows:

I remember sitting thinking how hospital appointments were renowned for running over but surely, she isn’t still in there? At this point I text to see if there was any news as you have read above. I looked up and Conor and read out the response, “it’s not looking good” – what does that mean? But I didn’t feel panicked, I just was eager to know what was happening. Again, renowned for giving you excessive amounts of information at once, had the doctors said, “we’re just ruling out cancer” and there had been a miscommunication to what was actually said? 

I decided it was best to wait and just hear when Mum eventually phoned, although something wasn’t right, over 4 hours for a 40-minute appointment, there must be something wrong.

“They’ve told me it’s breast cancer”

Bingo! There it is. The word you dread to have any association with you or your loved ones. The one off the adverts about raising awareness where you watch and think ‘poor buggers having to go through that’ yet it still doesn’t sink in that in reality it happens to anybody. The one on the side of charity box in the supermarket you throw a quid into every now and again – you know, to do your bit. 

But this time it was there with Mum, inside Mum, infecting MY MUM. Me and Conor just stared at each other not knowing what to say, and in a way still not understanding what it meant. Was it a death sentence, was the following conversation going to be about how long she had left to live? And then you start to think about all kinds of crap which really aren’t a priority in this moment. Shit like, what do you buy a cancer patient for Christmas? And all of this is within the 3-5 seconds of hearing that word. I think we had at least 3 phone calls that evening, and all of them followed the script of “what? why though?, I mean how?”. It wasn’t until this moment I really understood the line: Cancer doesn’t discriminate. 

I struggled to realise what I needed to do, whether to just take the hit and jump in a taxi from Chester to Lancaster so I could be there in just short of an hour and a half, or try and digest the news overnight and jump on the first train to leave in the morning. We ended up doing the latter, mainly due to Mum reassuring me there wasn’t anything I could do that would be any different if it were done a few hours later. So, I packed me & Conor the worst overnight bag ever, and we were on the early train the following morning. 

I think my main worry was if I’d be able to notice, would I walk in and she already look poorly or under the effects of the disgusting disease we now knew was present in her system. I prepared myself for an atmosphere, for the house to feel different somehow, to be expected to not mention the ‘C’ word, or the opposite and talk about it at length but with no knowledge of what to do. However, it was oddly quite the opposite, greeted as normal by Hector the loving Labrador German Sheppard cross (head dived in my bag checking for food), and a hug from Mum before being put to work for the upcoming fundraising birthday event two days later. 

I prepared for tears, anxiety and sadness but instead got PAC-MAN, shoulder pads, and leg warmers.

I barely slept that night, many thoughts running through my head, feeling like I had been thrown into the unknown. If you’ve been there yourself, you’ll better understand how you feel nothing yet everything at the same time, and that a matter of hours isn’t enough to even begin to comprehend the news you are trying to process.

Prior to attending the Breast Clinic with Alex for my full diagnosis, I received a letter listing my biopsy results. It may as well have been written in French because it made absolutely no sense to me, filled with medical jargon, and words I could only dream of being able to remember or spell! Luckily, an old school friend who I was in touch with offered to read a screenshot of my letter, having battled cancer herself in previous years and worked at the Breast Clinic, I was confident that she would be able to shed some light on the matter. Sure enough, she explained it all in words which were much easier to understand, and I began to understand what my results meant. I felt numb and shocked at the extent of what I was dealing with, so Sarah kindly offered for me to pop over to hers and discuss things further over a cup of tea – an offer I couldn’t refuse. 

Sarah Winnard, I will be forever grateful for the comfort you provided me and will never forget how helpful you were, and continue to be on my entire journey.

18th April 2018

Accompanied by my husband we were invited back to see the consultant in order to receive my full diagnosis. Out of the three tumours found, two were benign, but the one found on the inner quadrant of my left breast was Triple Negative Breast Cancer, deemed the most lethal and aggressive of all breast cancers. After what could be deemed a roller coaster of the last ten years, although that’s a different story, this straw was the one to break the camel’s back. I turned to look at my husband, who at the time I thought looked vacant given the information we had received, emotionless almost but on reflection how are you supposed to look in this situation? In the confinement of the hospital, a very clinical and professional environment, I wanted to stand up and scream “I HAVE CANCER FOR FUCK SAKE”, in the hope that he had the reassuring words I wanted to hear, rather than the medical jargon of the hospital staff. I felt like I needed him to respond with something, anything, but again what are you meant to say?