I wasn’t at my mum’s side when she learned she had breast cancer, but that made me determined to be there the day she was getting the all-clear 18-months later. However, things didn’t go to plan that day.
Mum’s cancer journey started over a decade ago, a few months after a routine mammogram – when she developed “a pain”. She told herself it was probably nothing, because the scan she’d just had was fine. When she mentioned it to her GP – a small lump that didn’t feel quite right – she convinced herself that she was just being silly. The biopsy begged to differ.
In the list you keep in your head of the cancers you worry your mum might get, breast wasn’t that high on mine. Yes, it’s long been the number one cancer affecting women, with Macmillan Cancer Support reporting that about 55,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK each year – the risk factor only increasing with age. But my mum had other health concerns to contend with.
As a schoolgirl in swinging London, she’d been a back-of-the-bikeshed smoker, which had graduated into a lifelong habit. Lung cancer seemed like a possibility.
Mum’s also the biggest sun worshipper I know. Long before any of us had heard of SPF, she would think nothing of spending an afternoon in the garden, stretched out on a blanket, slathered in baby oil. So, given what we know now about UV radiation, I wondered about skin cancer too.
Mum went on to have a series of lumpectomies to get rid of three spots of malignant tissue. She would also have lymph nodes removed as a precaution, as well as undergo extensive chemotherapy.
For me, her diagnosis was as though a stopwatch had been started. How long might she have left? She did her best to be stoic. Which was just as well, given what government austerity measures at the time were doing to the NHS: budget cuts, hapless reorganisations, and an end to the “gold-standard” two-week referral from detection to the start of treatment.
All mum could do was wait for the brown envelopes to drop on the doormat detailing appointments at unfamiliar hospitals many miles away, sometimes after the appointment had been and gone.
If she felt let down by the bureaucracy of our health service, the same could not be said for the army of individuals involved in her care. On a human level, she found her nurses and doctors to be uniquely composed and compassionate throughout her treatment.
When the day finally came for her oncologist to tell her that all the signs of her cancer had gone, I was invited along to hold her hand. “The scans are back,” he began. “And I need to discuss your options for the next course of action.” It seemed the cancer hadn’t quite gone after all. She had fought so hard to get to this point, she was expecting good news, and was unprepared for the knockback.
But she did go on to beat cancer – and has been in remission for more than five years, which we couldn’t be more grateful for. However, should it ever come back, there’s one thing we’d do differently from the off: make a call to Macmillan Cancer Support.
Only with hindsight, did we realise how much help Macmillan would have been. Someone to provide her with a calming companion for the journey, someone to help with the cancer admin – the appointments, the prescriptions, the test results – and someone to explain what all the scans and tests were for, what the results might mean, and what to expect next.
I couldn’t always be around while mum was living with cancer, and that’s where Macmillan steps in. Now, enjoying a slice of cake at a Coffee Morning, which is raising money to fund the work they do, seems like the least I can do.
Find out how you can help raise vital funds by hosting a Macmillan Coffee Morning. Sign up now on the Macmillan website
Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604). Also operating in Northern Ireland.
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