I was told by a friend that the survival rate for women with stage 2 breast cancer is 92%. That should bring a significant degree of comfort but at 3 am when you are wide awake and the fear has taken over, all you can focus on is the 8% not the 92%.

Contemplating the possibility that you may not be around to see your kids grow up and make lives of their own is a very surreal thing. You feel as though you are living someone else’s life, not your own. In those first few weeks post diagnosis it was all that I could think about. What if the scans showed that the cancer had spread? We already know that it has spread from the lump to a lymph node so there is every possibility that it has moved on from the lymph node to another part of my body surely? and if that is the case there will I be in the 8%.

When I was told that I had cancer it was a shock but I didn’t break down, there were no tears. Dan was sitting next to me but thankfully not within my eyesight as I tried to focus on the information I was being given by the consultant. I didn’t hear any of it. Dan had a notebook and was writing things down as we had agreed. All I could think of was what is going on in his head? Poor Dan, he has just been told his wife has cancer, is that what he is writing? CANCER and maybe underlining it? I was so glad that I couldn’t see him, I think if I had made eye contact the tears would have come. I wanted to run out. Put my fingers in my ears and run away from the news I was being given. Maybe then it wouldn’t be real. I could feel the panic stating to rise in me. I took a breath and tried to focus on the words coming out of the consultants mouth. How many times a week does he have to do this? What an awful job.

We sat in silence in the car after that appointment, Dan held my hand. We had walked the dog that morning and already discussed the very real possibility that we would be given this news so there wasn’t very much more to say. We had discussed what it would mean, that we were strong and would get through it and Dan had reassured me that going through something like this would only make us stronger as a couple and as a family. Oh my god, the kids!!!! How were we going to tell Max and Jodie that their mum has cancer? The panic started rising again. I couldn’t think about it so had to put it out of my head. That is a strategy have learned in the last few months. If the thought is too awful just park it for a while, put it in a box in your mind and come back to it later, it will still be there so you don’t need to think about it immediately.

I rang my mum and dad from the car on our way home from the appointment with the consultant. I felt an enormous sense of guilt making that call. As a parent myself I can only imagine the pain you must feel to be told that your child has a serious illness, even when your child is 49 years old and a parent themselves. I knew that the impact of the pandemic would make the news even worse. My parents live up north so our get togethers are not that frequent in normal times but the impact of COVID has meant that this year they have been mostly via telephone on Zoom calls. I knew how much it would torture my mum not to be able to leap into action, come down south and help in any way she could, but worse than that, not to be able to give me a mum’s hug me and tell me it will all be alright. I knew how much it would hurt my dad to know that I was facing a problem that he can’t provide an instant dad’s solution to. Their little girl has cancer and I so desperately wanted to protect them from that news. I was able to keep it together whilst I told them and they bravely received the news, giving me their reassurance it would all be fine but I could hear the strain in their voices. I knew there would be tears as soon as we hung up the phone at both ends of that call.

After the initial shock of the diagnosis had subsided and I had passed on the news to those I needed to I became filled with a rather strange sense of acceptance. I thought about my life a lot whilst walking the dog and chatting to friends. I found huge comfort walking with a friend who had been through a similar experience, she understood the thoughts that had been racing through my head which reassured me that I wasn’t totally losing the plot. I had gone from being frozen with fear at the prospect of my life coming to an abrupt end to being bizarrely accepting that even though 49 would be young to be departing life, I have had a really good life. I had a wonderful childhood and upbringing, I have a wonderful husband and two gorgeous children who have made my life complete. I have a fabulous set of friends some of whom have known me forever, some who have known me a shorter time and some I have made through work but they have all brought so much joy, laughter and love to my life. I have travelled and seen and experienced fantastic parts of the world as a result. I don’t have any regrets and whilst I would love to have the chance of lots more years of loving life, if it has to stop now I have had 49 years of living life to the max and have loved every minute.

The flip side of dying now of course is what I would leave behind, two beautiful kids with no mum, a fantastic husband who would need to deal with so much more than he deals with already on his own and my own mum and dad devastated to have had to bury a child. I couldn’t bear to think of it. I found my mind wandering as I walked, thinking of the letters I would write to the kids and Dan or would I be able to hold it together to record a video for them? What music that would be played at my funeral, who would be there, would I get a good turn out? It all came out one morning after the kids had gone to school, we were stood in the kitchen and the tears came. I asked Dan “what if I die?” He held me and told me I couldn’t die “who will I move to the Dordogne with if I you die?” he asked and we cried it out together.

I had reason to call the Breast Clinic the Friday after my CT scan to ask a question about my MRI scan the following week. Whilst talking to the nurse she pulled up my records and said “I can see that your CT scan results are in, would you like them?” she caught me off guard, I don’t know, do I want to know the results? What if it is not good news? But of course I said yes, and I held my breath. “It’s all good, it’s all come back negative, lungs, liver, stomach…….” I stopped hearing, the news brought a sense of relief the level of which I have never felt before. It gave me the much needed hope that I might just make it into that 92%, I may not have to write those letters to the kids and I might just make it to the Dordogne. She told me after that they never give bad news over the phone. I still had the MRI results to go but for that weekend Dan and I took the small win, it was something to tick off, a process we would get very used to.