At just 29, Emma was forced to plan her own funeral as she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer with few treatments available
The moment a 29-year-old woman, just married, was left horrified to learn her nightmares were becoming real.
READ MORE: Piccadilly Gardens bus crash: Everything we know so far as ambulance service and police issue statement“I was told in 2016 that I had the BRCA1 gene and I knew I had an increased risk of getting ovarian and breast cancer, but I was told that wouldn’t happen until I was 40-years-old,” said Emma. “The message I took away from the doctors was ‘go, live your life, have your babies and come back to us in 15 years’.
“I felt a lump on my breast – it felt like a marble. I immediately thought, ‘that’s not good,’” Emma continued. “There was nothing I could do, I couldn’t go to a Thai hospital for something like that. I thought I’d keep it to myself until we got home – but he knew something was wrong. “But there was relief from him. He thought that I was having doubts about our marriage because something had been wrong while we were away.
Doctors told Emma they ‘weren’t going to put a number on’ but that her cancer was ‘very aggressive’ and they were ‘going to throw everything at it’. “The doctors told me I was very lucky to still be here because the triple negative cancer had been so near to my chest wall," said Emma. “It was a massive blow,” said Emma, who had been looking forward to starting a family with Tom, who had spent long evenings ‘researching to be able to have answers when I had questions’ about the turmoil unfolding. “I felt so guilty because it was like I was stopping Tom from getting to be a dad, as if I was damaged goods.The IVF had to be ‘rushed’, said Emma, as doctors were keen to start treatment on her aggressive cancer as soon as possible.
Emma completed her treatment in August 2019 and was placed on hormone therapy to reduce the chance of the cancer coming back. In a much needed turn of fate, the treatment has so far held for Emma and she began the long road to recovery – even completing a 5k run to build her stamina and to raise money for Breast Cancer Now.
“I don’t say I’m counting the days now, I say I’m making them count,” says Emma, now 33. “I enjoy every day because you realise how fragile life is after something like this, and I’m grateful I know that so early on. Researchers are investigating how to stop triple negative breast cancer spreading, thanks to new funding from Breast Cancer Now. The charity has awarded £249,992 to Dr Sankari Nagarajan and her team at the University of Manchester to help discover why some triple negative breast cancers spread to other parts of the body and whether existing drugs can be repurposed to stop this from happening.
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