Breast cancer awareness month malarkey.....

As many of you may know, October is breast cancer awareness month. Cue the saturation of the world with all things pink for four weeks.  But for what purpose? I mean, everyone knows about breast cancer right? It’s the most common cancer in the UK. Around 55,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their life time. The openness and honestly of celebrities like Kylie Minogue have ensured that breast cancer has appeared on the public’s antennae and stayed there.

I know that breast cancer awareness month provides excellent opportunities for charities to raise awareness about their services, to increase donations, gather support for campaigning work and to reach out to those who may be in need and I fully support that. I can’t help feel however, that sometimes the real, important messages about breast cancer get lost in the plethora of pink and tits. The amount of times I've heard 'well, its not that big a deal now a days is it?' scares me. And breast cancer is often sexualised like no other cancer – I refer to The Sun's Check 'Em Tuesday and the Playboy Club London's #bunniesinpink as examples.  I don’t even want to think about the photo of the ‘save second base’ t-shirt I recently saw on Twitter…

So, in the midst of all things pink, I want to provide you with some information and facts about breast cancer, some taken from brilliant websites like Breast Cancer Care and Cancer Research UK but also personal, from the heart stories. I want you to hear from young women who have been personally affected by breast cancer – about the signs they spotted, how they were diagnosed and their treatment.  I want to raise awareness that no one is too young to get breast cancer and that every young woman should be vigilant regarding any changes to her body.  I want you to hear from the heart what it means to be diagnosed with this disease and the effect that it has on your life. How all of a sudden you are plunged in to a whirlwind of tests, scans, results, hospital appointments and gruelling treatment that leaves you feeling like you no longer recognise yourself anymore and that the person you once were has been lost forever.  That breast cancer is not all ribbons, fluffy teddies and pink tea towels. 

But I also want you to share in the pride and awe that I feel regarding my wonderful friends from the Younger Breast Cancer Network. Many of these women I have never met in person but yet every day I know they are just a keyboard away, willing to take the time to respond to any fears, concerns or rants despite battling through diagnosis, treatment and the aftermath of breast cancer themselves.

So, during the month of October, as my contribution to breast cancer awareness month, I will be featuring a number of personal stories written by some of these wonderful women on my blog. I hope you find them as bloody fantastic as I do.

Our chemo 5K!!!

This post is a little delayed as I've felt a bit rough over the last few days. I'm learning that the feeling rubbish bit of chemotherapy kicks in for me around day six. I've had a couple of days of feeling pretty tired and low and basically just wanting to stay in bed. You can't quite pinpoint exactly what it is that doesn't feel right. It's kind of everything. You just feel generally a bit shite. Bit floaty, sicky, headachy and low. A bit meh.

Anyway, back to something positive - we did it! We ran a 5 k race after our second chemotherapy treatment!

For those of you who know me, you'll know that running has been a big part of my life for the last two and a half years. I had recently started training for another half marathon when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. One of my first thoughts after my diagnosis was 'well there goes that idea'. I really struggled with the thought that one of the things this cancer would be robbing me of was the level of fitness that I had built up over the last couple of years.

Running is my way of coping with things. Some people turn to food, drunk or drugs but my way is running. Probably doesn't sound as fun though right? I continued running after my diagnosis and have kept it up since chemotherapy started. Its harder and I'm covering less distance but I'm still doing it. I made a deal with myself that no matter how unlike running I felt during my treatment I would make myself get out there, even for just a short one.

When I decided to enter the Big Fun Run 5K in Birmingham it seemed a little bit silly. The race was four days after my second chemotherapy treatment and I had no idea how it was going to affect me. I hadn't actually entered when I mentioned it to Sarah, my friend from the Younger Breast Cancer Network UK. The idea was met with her usual unfailing enthusiasm and we agreed to run it together and also to raise money for Breast Cancer Care and Cancer Research UK in the process. So our entries were made and the fundraising page created.

I'll be honest, it gave me a bit of a buzz. Well, a lot of one. It gave me something to focus on other than cancer and made me feel like I was doing something useful rather than being a massive burden to my family, friends and the National Health Service.

We completed the race in our pink tops and me with my new pink running hat to hide my chicken fluff stubble head - Sarah in 26 mins 30 secs and me in 25 minutes and 25 seconds (yes seems very fast but it was actually about 4.7K rather than 5K but lets not dwell on that bit!). Then we went and ate cake, which was well deserved I reckon!

We also featured in the Birmingham Post, although they got the distance massively wrong, and completed a bit of a photo shoot for the Birmingham Mail. The photos consisted of some very silly 'running' photos and catalogue type shoots of us grinning and staring off in to the distance. The story hasn't been featured yet but we'll let you know when it is!

We've been blown away by the generosity of the people we know and some that we don't. So far we've raised £1510 for Breast Cancer Care and Cancer Research - two fantastic charities. Breast Cancer Care have been fantastic since the point of my diagnosis by providing excellent information resources, a volunteer from their Some Like Me Service and also pointing me in the direction of the Younger Breast Cancer Network UK where Sarah and I met. We are also attending their Younger Women Together two day event this weekend, organised to provide information, support and networking opportunities for younger women with breast cancer. We are quite a rare breed and I don't know of another charity who provides the level of support and information for us that Breast Cancer Care does. Cancer Research UK save lives with the work that they do and they provide some pretty good information and resources too.

If you would like to donate to these fantastic causes you can still do so here.

Thank you again to everyone for the positivity and support that you've given us. It really does make all the difference. xxx

Support and Superwomen

So I’d like to give this next post a slightly different flavour and focus on some of the positives (yes, you read that right) since my diagnosis of breast cancer.

One of the first things I did after my diagnosis was tell as many people as I possible. I know that not everyone deals with it like that, but I just wanted it out of the way. I felt there no way I could just pretend that everything was ok and hide it from everyone around me. In my head I now had a massive neon pink sign (yes pink – it’s the colour of breast cancer don’t you know?) above my head pointed at me saying ‘person with cancer right here’.

I had some lovely, supportive responses and have continued to receive lovely kind messages since then from a number of those people. I’ve had offers of help and displays of kindness from some unexpected sources.

Two days after my diagnosis, I decided last minute to run the Race for Life, which was an incredibly hard thing to do. It was only 5k which is a very easy distance for me physically but the emotional toll was far worse. I will admit a few tears were shed before the race began. I received some incredibly generous donations from people for my efforts, all of which go to Cancer Research UK, an organisation that works continuously to find new and pioneering treatments for cancers like mine.

I’ve had some frank conversations with friends about how much support I’m likely to need over the next few months. I very rarely ask for anything from people, both emotionally and practically, so this is going to be very hard for me. But luckily, I have some amazing friends who I trust to be there for me at the hardest time of my life.

One of the first things I did when I was diagnosed, was call Breast Cancer Care who run a service called Someone Like Me. They can put you in touch with a volunteer who is a few years down the line since their diagnosis, but in a similar position to you. Within a couple of hours I had a call from a volunteer who was diagnosed when she was 30 (she is 34 now) and had an incredible frank and open conversation with her which made me feel so much better (well as much as I could do at that time). She now rings me regularly and it is so helpful to discuss what I’m going through with someone who has been there and has come out the other side.

She also mentioned a network on Facebook for younger women with breast cancerFacebook network for younger women with breast cancer. Yes! Facebook is actually good for more than just repeated updates about what you’ve had for dinner, your child’s toilet habits and photos of drunken nights out! The network has over a 1000 members now and is quite possibly the best thing I have ever found on the internet. Until now, I have never appreciated how wonderful women are and the strength and support that they can provide. These women are all at different stages of their journey – at diagnosis, active treatment and beyond and are going through some awful times but still have the time and energy to speak to others about their fears and concerns.

I recently met up with a member of the network I had been talking to for a while, an incredibly brave lady (she won’t like me saying that!) who was diagnosed on the same day as me. It was wonderful to meet her, albeit only for an hour before she went wig shopping. However, I had a massive anxiety attack and ended up throwing up all my tea and cake outside the café. But if anyone is going to understand it’s her right? This is the beauty of that network. There is no judgement, no concern or question is too silly or too small and there is always someone there to talk to day or night. They truly are Superwomen and I am so, so grateful that I have found them.