Sam’s story

Breast Cancer effects so many people in so many ways, maybe you have been personally affected, or one of your friends has been and you have had to support them. Breast Cancer now do amazing work and have certainly paid into my own personal journey. On the day that I was stood in the Spire Murrayfield Hospital in Edinburgh getting my diagnosis I was handed several booklets to read These booklets are created and published by the Breast Cancer Now charity and they are amazing. In that first few awful hours and days they give you all the information you need to process what is happening.

My journey began in January when I found a very small bit of a dimple below my left breast, it was actually hard to really see it but thank goodness I called my private medical line when I did. I was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer in mid January having had many scans and biopsies. It was confirmed that the lumps were against my chest wall and in my lymph nodes and that I would need to have a Mastectomy with full lymph node clearance and chemotherapy, radiotherapy and then hormone treatments. My cancer was a HER2 negative, hormone positive. Stage three just means that it has spread into the lymph nodes and at this point things get serious and you generally need chemotherapy to try and stop cancer cells from spreading into other parts of your body and going metastatic.

It’s been some journey, from Mastectomy and Lymph node clearance to having to have seroma’s drained, to Chemo, cold capping, blood clots, chemo reactions, self-injecting blood thinners and white blood cell boosters, losing hair, eyebrows, changing chemo regime’s…. and I am now just past the halfway mark with my chemo. I am incredibly lucky to have an amazing team at the Albyn Hospital in Aberdeen and also an amazing team of nurses through Sciensus who have done my treatment and taken bloods in the comfort of my home. When people ask me what the big take aways are from all of this, my number one is to get private medical insurance. It has most definitely softened the blow and given me access to drugs to ease the side effects. The second big thing is to remain slim and fit. My surgeon and oncologist re-iterate this all of the time. The big one is mindset. As anyone who knows me knows, I am absolutely determined to carry on as normal, keep working, keep riding my horses, keep life going exactly how it was. No self-pity, no locking myself away. Always happy to be open about my journey and talk to people about it. Try and bust the myth that chemo via infusion is this awful thing that will have you gasping for your breath and at deaths door. For me it has not been that at all. I have my chemo and carry on. I realise that I am otherwise very healthy which does mean that I have had regimes that some would not cope with, but that comes back to my number two take away which is to stay slim and fit.

I still have a long way to go, and everyone’s journey is different. Many people have been touched by breast cancer, many people have had it in some shape or form, whether it be just a small lump or something more gruelling, the initial fear is just the same and the help that charities like Breast Cancer now provide at that point is so crucial. Help us raise money and awareness for this vital work.

Thank you for your support

Sam