Before reaching 30 I have been diagnosed with breast cancer twice, my 1st diagnosis was back in July 2017 with Stage 1, grade 2 invasive breast cancer and my 2nd diagnosis was in September 2018 with High Grade DCIS.

Upon my first diagnosis I received a wide local excision (WLE), 15 sessions of radiotherapy and tamoxifen for at least 5 years and when I received my second diagnosis, I went on to receive another wide local excision & 15 further sessions of radiotherapy.

I was a patient under the Primrose breast care centre for 2 years and my god was my experience a positive one. At every single appointment I was met with so much kindness and compassion. I was made to feel so safe; I just knew from the moment I walked in after finding my lump that I would be well cared for. A huge thank you to Ms Stephanie Jenkins, who is completely awesome, she answered all my questions (however silly they were) and made me smile constantly. Also thanks to Dr Jim Steel, who made me smile and laugh (which put me totally at ease) after being recalled for additional images (even after I insulted his ceiling by saying it was boring!) and of course Breast Care Nurse Rachel Wood, who was with me throughout my appointments and 2 diagnosis, thank you for giving me all the useful information and enabling me to feel confident again…..You are all awesome!

Like so many others I wanted to give something back to Primrose after receiving such fantastic care, so I put together a quiz night for the Primrose foundation which was great fun and we manged to raise over £900. In the past year I have moved to Hertfordshire so it is a little tricky to fundraise locally however I still hold the Primrose flag high and I help when I can.

I was incredibly lucky as I received so much support throughout the whole process, from start to finish. I was very open and honest from the start and felt comfortable sharing with my family, friends and colleagues what was happening to me. This helped me to recover from the emotional and mental trauma of being diagnosed with cancer at such a young age.

If I could share advice with anyone going through a similar experience to me it would be to allow yourself time to recover and recuperate. Surgery and treatment will take its toll on your body and it is particularly important that you acknowledge this and allow yourself time to heal. I would also strongly advice not to google things like your medication or compare yourself to other patients. Every single breast cancer patient’s circumstance is different to yours. It is quite easy to get hung up and influenced whilst reading blogs and other forums. Your experience is unique to you. Treatment may affect you differently to others, just listen to your body and just take your time. Also, cancer treatment will affect your mental wellbeing, mainly because it is such a difficult process to go through, just be kind to yourself and allow for time to heal.

In all honestly my whole experience/journey was a positive one, I have taken nothing negative from my diagnoses at all. I think when something like this happens it can either de-rail you or set you on a new path and for me it was the latter. I know see things totally differently and make sure I make the most of every opportunity given to me. I now use my free time to empower young women like myself to check their boobs. I am very open about my journey and am happy to share to help others. I am also in the process of writing a book, to hopefully help others too.

The most important thing I would say to remember is that it really is ok to NOT be ok. When we are diagnosed, we automatically switch to this superwoman/man phase where we just steam role through surgery then to treatment etc and we do not seem to acknowledge how we really feel. It is important to be honest because quite frankly, the physical side of the process for me was the easy bit. The emotional and mental recovery was much longer. It takes time to come to terms with the fact that you had cancer (this is the post-recovery phase) there is no time limit on this. Allow it to take as long as it takes, this is totally fine.