My Name is Niamh and the day after my 30th birthday I was diagnosed with stage three, triple positive breast cancer.
I found a golf-ball sized lump in my armpit in October 2023 and didn’t think much of it, breast cancer doesn’t run in my family and as a young woman you never think it will happen to you. I went to my GP in November 2023 with concerns about the lump in my armpit and a lump behind my nipple and she thought it might be a hormonal cyst as I had recently, at the time, gotten the contraceptive implant in. She sent me for an urgent referral to the breast clinic though to be sure because in April of that same year I had felt little pea sized lumps behind the same nipple. In April I had an examination in the breast clinic, and they put it down to thick breast tissue and did not do an ultrasound, just a physical examination.
I was then seen at the end of February 2024 with the urgent referral as Christmas time had delayed this. I was seen by a breast surgeon and was told “this is really worrying’. My heart sank and panic set in. They did an ultrasound, biopsies and mammogram that day and were told I would get the results in 10 days. I went in 10 days later and got the news that it was stage 3, triple positive and spread to my lymph nodes. The next few weeks were a blur of appointments, scans and calls to start treatment as quickly as possible.
As a young woman with no family history of breast cancer it was never something I thought would happen to me, let alone at such a young age. I rarely checked my breasts and didn’t know what to look out for in terms of symptoms until I was diagnosed and now looking back, I did have the dimpling on my breast, and I did have the mis-shaped breast. My symptoms came on within 2 or 3 months and my tumours grew quickly and aggressively.
That’s why now more than ever, I think it’s so important for young women especially, to check your breasts and know the signs and symptoms because it can happen to anyone, cancer does not care.
I quickly started TCHP chemotherapy and responded well to it, shrinking my tumours. I had a mastectomy and lymph node clearance in August followed by 20 sessions of radiation. I now get a chemo/immunotherapy infusion of Kadcyla every 3 weeks. I get Zoladex injections every month and am taking a hormonal therapy tablet daily.
As a young woman the physical changes to your body like losing your hair, losing your breast impacted my self-confidence a huge amount but it was the emotional and mental aspect that I really struggled with. Being put into a medically induced menopause at 30, the uncertainty of fertility, the slower paced life I have to live now, the financial struggle – all things are a secondary thought to a cancer diagnosis.
I count myself as one of the lucky ones – I’m lucky that my cancer was found and that I was able to receive treatment and that I’ve responded well to treatment because I know there are many that don’t have that.
