October marks both breast cancer and menopause awareness months so who better to write a blog than someone who has experienced both. Over to Lauren, aka @lefphillips…
Mastectomies, Menopause and Me
On International Women’s Day in March 2023, I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the ripe old age of 28. I thank a very thorough GP, an incredible trainee radiologist and the cyst which made me go for a check. My maternal grandma had breast cancer when she was 31. It was 1960 and medical science wasn’t quite what we have today. She had a radical single mastectomy, with full lymph node clearance and some intense radiotherapy, and it never bothered her again. She was an only child and went on to have my mum in 1967 who would also be an only child. I grew up very close to my granny, I remember thinking for a long time that all ladies only had one chest and a jelly one that fitted in their bras. It was soft and squishy and cold. So, when I found a little lump, I knew she’d have wanted me to get it checked.
Covid had postponed our wedding from 2021 to 2023, and all I could think after hearing the news in that tiny side room with lots of medical staff was “well, I’m not postponing it again”. The day after my diagnosis, my mum and I went to our pre-arranged makeup and hair trials – that is how close we were to the wedding, shock does weird things to you. My life – our lives, because this affected my husband as much as it did me – became entirely dictated by hospital appointments and phone calls. Briefly, the process went something like this: genetics testing, egg harvesting, induced chemical menopause, a lymph biopsy, a double mastectomy with immediate reconstruction from my legs, the shock that it was more extensive than scans had showed so I had 3 months of weekly chemotherapy and 6 months of a targeted treatment (Herceptin), and finally, radiotherapy. It took 14 months and cost me my boobs, my hair and my fertility all before I was 30, but I had my life.
And whilst I would not recommend breast cancer to anyone, my genetic testing revealed the BRCA1 mutation – something I had suspected due to my grandma’s diagnosis. So, off everyone went to get tested, my mum and my two younger brothers. My brothers have thankfully avoided the mutation, but mum was the carrier so, as I type this, I’m watching her walk around with her drains after her preventative double mastectomy. And for that, we are both grateful. Mum had been on the family register for yearly mammograms since she was 34 but “fell off the list” at 50, when her risk from the BRCA1 mutation would have jumped. Earlier this year she had her salpingo-oophorectomy too, something I will need to decide upon before I hit my 40th birthday.
For me, I’ll be in a chemical menopause for five years at least. That’s a four weekly injection to turn my ovaries “off” and a daily tablet to mop up any extra oestrogen hanging about. Menopause wasn’t a particularly great event in our household, certainly not something my mum or grandma felt was worth mentioning but chemical menopause is not that. It’s a sudden plunge into a period of my life as a woman that should have taken place over the course of years.
People joke about hot flushes, and yes, they’re real and irritating but on their own, manageable. It’s all the other stuff I wasn’t ready for. I used to be an early bird. Now, I can’t get up before 7:30 no matter how early I go to bed. It’s waking up and taking 20 minutes to slowly uncurl your fingers and toes because your joints have seized in the night. It’s being unable to go for the 5K run you could do with ease a year ago because your knees are on fire. It’s learning what vaginal moisturisers are. It’s completely forgetting simple, key words in the middle of a sentence. It’s losing your confidence at work. It’s losing some of your independence. It’s so much more than just being “a bit hot”.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Since completing radiotherapy in January, I’ve been at the gym weekly and I’m honestly stronger than I’ve ever been. After getting the sign off from oncology in April (2024), I’ve done the Breast Cancer Now Pink Ribbon 10 mile walk with my mum, the Macmillan Lake District Mighty Hike with my husband for BRCA+ Babes, and in September I climbed Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) and I have no plans to stop climbing mountains. Yes, my special cooling pillow and fan come with me on any trip in the UK (and I search for great aircon abroad), but honestly, I’m living again. Now I just need my hair to grow a little faster…
Thank you so much for sharing your story with us Lauren. You have managed to do some incredible things whilst navigating not only cancer, but menopause too! Xx
