I knew 2025 was going to be a huge milestone year.
After seven years of long distance, my partner and I were finally getting married. It was something we had waited so long for, and we were so excited to finally start this next chapter together.
In October, we decided to do something a little spontaneous. We thought, why not do a mini Europe trip to Spain and Portugal and elope while we’re there?
So we did.
It was honestly the most beautiful trip. It was romantic, fun and so special — one of those trips you think you’ll look back on forever as one of the happiest times of your life.
And then, just a couple of months later, everything changed.
The lump
It was a week before Christmas in 2025 when I noticed a lump in my breast.
I remember mentioning it to a work colleague, but it was also the busiest time of the year and there was so much going on. I didn’t really think too much of it.
My husband, on the other hand, knew we needed to get it checked ASAP.
So on my day off, I quickly went to get an ultrasound.
I’ll never forget what happened next.
The sonographer started on my right side and we were chatting away about Europe and our trip. Everything felt completely normal.
Then he moved over to my left side.
And he froze.
He stopped talking mid-sentence.
I immediately knew something wasn’t right.
He told me I needed to have a mammogram and biopsy the very next day.
“Surely it’s nothing”
That night, I barely slept.
But even though I was worried, a part of me still thought, surely it’s nothing.
I was 34. I was healthy. I felt completely normal.
Surely if you had breast cancer, you’d feel sick or unwell?
The next day I had my first mammogram.
And yes — it definitely hurt.
Imagine someone squashing your boob and turning it into a pancake.
Then came the biopsy.
Nothing really prepares you for that moment.
Three days later, just before Christmas, we got a call from my GP asking us to come in.
Nothing prepares you for hearing the words:
“You have invasive ductal carcinoma.”
Everything suddenly became very real.
What followed was a whirlwind of appointments, scans and biopsies.
I had an MRI and CT scan on Christmas Eve. I remember being told that they’d shuffled things around because, if my scans didn’t look good, I might need emergency surgery that very day.
Thankfully, they let me eat after the scans.
At the time, I remember thinking, well, that’s probably a good sign.
Eventually, my doctors explained that I had around 60 days to get everything organised and start treatment.
And then came the diagnosis that would shape the next year of my life.
Triple-positive breast cancer.
That meant I was ER positive, PR positive and HER2 positive.
I needed chemotherapy, surgery, radiation and then years of hormone therapy.
And because chemotherapy could affect my fertility, I was told that if I wanted the possibility of having children in the future, I needed to do IVF before starting treatment.
Suddenly, plans that I had imagined for my future had been put on hold.
Pregnancy would have to wait.
Starting a family would have to wait.
So many of the things we thought would happen naturally in our 30s suddenly became things we had to plan around cancer treatment.
It was a lot to take in.
But I was incredibly lucky to have a medical team who kept reminding me that we were treating this with the goal of a cure.
My surgeon said something I’ll never forget:
“In five years, this will all be a distant, bad memory as you drive past the hospital.”
I held onto those words.
It will all be okay.
The parts people don’t see
Something I’ve realised throughout this experience is that people often see the big things.
The chemotherapy.
The surgery.
The hair loss.
But there are so many smaller things that happen behind closed doors that nobody really sees.
Things I never imagined I’d struggle with.
There were days when I couldn’t even shower myself.
Things as simple as washing my hair or getting dressed could feel like enormous tasks.
And then there was work.
Cancer doesn’t just affect your health. It affects your entire life.
I had to step away from work while going through treatment, and there wasn’t a financial safety net waiting for me.
There was no financial support to make everything suddenly easier.
Bills still existed. Life still went on. But I was trying to get through treatment at the same time.
It’s something I don’t think people talk about enough — the financial stress that can sit quietly alongside everything else.
IVF, biopsies and chemo — all at once
Within a fortnight, we started IVF.
Daily injections into my stomach. Two weeks of treatment. Then surgery.
We were incredibly lucky to get embryos.
That same week, I also had two biopsies on my right side and my first round of chemotherapy.
Looking back now, I honestly don’t know how I got through that week.
But somehow, you just do.
You don’t really have a choice. You put one foot in front of the other and keep going.
Losing my hair — and losing myself a little
A few weeks into chemotherapy, I experienced something that broke my heart in a completely different way.
My hair started falling out.
If you know me, you’ll know how much I loved my hair.
It was the one thing about myself that I absolutely adored. I spent so much time looking after it, styling it and taking care of it.
And suddenly, it was falling all over the floor.
By 21 February, I couldn’t take it anymore. It was coming out in huge clumps.
I was terrified to shave it.
So my husband did it at home with me.
He wanted to shave his head too, so I shaved his first.
Then it was my turn.
I remember being absolutely terrified to look in the mirror.
But when I finally did…
I was okay.
It was still me.
Then the rest of my hair started disappearing too.
My eyebrows began falling out.
My eyelashes changed.
And there were moments where I genuinely didn’t recognise the person looking back at me in the mirror.
I had to organise a wig.
Something I never thought I’d have to do at 34.
There was something incredibly confronting about trying to find a version of myself that still looked familiar.
Some days, I looked in the mirror and thought, who is that?
Cancer didn’t just change my body.
For a while, it changed the way I saw myself.
But eventually, I started to realise that I was still me underneath all of it.
One round at a time
Then it was chemo after chemo. Round after round.
There were hard days. Really hard days.
But mentally, I tried to stay strong because I knew I needed to get through everything that was ahead of me.
One thing my chemo nurse said to me has stayed with me throughout this entire journey.
She told me:
“This will be the hardest time of your life. But once it’s done, that’s it. You will have so many beautiful memories ahead.”
I thought, okay.
Let’s just do this.
I also saw a psychologist at the oncology centre. I only saw her twice because, honestly, I didn’t feel like I got much out of it.
But she did give me one thing that really stuck with me.
Acceptance.
She told me I needed to accept what was happening.
And it took me a while.
I didn’t want this to be my reality. I didn’t choose it. I didn’t understand why it was happening to me.
But eventually, I accepted that this was where I was.
And strangely, once I did, I felt lighter.
I stopped asking why me?
And started thinking:
Okay. What do I need to do next?
Finding little things that made me happy
One of the things that surprised me throughout treatment was discovering new little things that made me happy.
I discovered a genuine love for plants.
Indoor plants became my thing.
I loved looking after them, watching them grow and having something small and beautiful to focus on.
I also discovered line dancing.
It might sound random, but having something completely unrelated to cancer gave me a sense of normality.
For a little while, I wasn’t the girl going through chemotherapy.
I was just me, learning a dance and having fun.
Those little things mattered more than I realised.
Sometimes getting through cancer isn’t about being positive every single day.
Sometimes it’s about finding tiny things that give you a reason to get out of bed.
Enter Ted
After six rounds of chemotherapy, I decided I deserved a little something.
So I told my husband:
“We should get a dog.”
Three days before my surgery, we spontaneously bought one.
And that’s how Ted came into our lives.
He’s a fluffy Groodle who looks like a little teddy bear, which is exactly how he got his name.
I genuinely don’t know what I would have done without him.
Ted brought so much love, happiness and light into a year that had felt so dark.
He reminded me that life was still happening outside hospital appointments.
There were walks to go on.
Balls to throw.
Slides to go down.
Baths to fight.
And a very fluffy little face waiting for me when I got home.
He made me realise that there really was light at the end of the tunnel.
Where I am now
Today, I’m sitting here writing this thinking…
Wow. I actually did it.
I got through the chemotherapy.
I had my surgery.
I had radiation.
And I’m still here.
I’m currently continuing treatment with T-DM1 for another nine months because they found a very small amount of residual cancer — around 1% — in my tissue after surgery.
It’s not quite the ending I imagined when I started this journey.
But I’m healthy. I’m here. And I’m incredibly grateful that I get another chance at life.
My cancer was caught early enough that it hadn’t spread anywhere else.
And that’s something I’ll never take for granted.
If there is one thing I want someone reading this to take away, it’s this:
You don’t have to feel sick to have breast cancer.
I felt completely healthy.
I was 34.
I was working, travelling, getting married and planning my future.
And then I found a lump.
Please check yourself. Don’t ignore something because you think you’re too young, too healthy or because you feel completely fine.
Early detection can save lives.
And if you’re currently going through something similar, I hope you know that you can get through it.
There will be days where you cry.
Days where you’re angry.
Days where you’re terrified.
There will be days where you can’t even shower yourself.
And there will also be days where you laugh, discover new things you love, make memories and realise that you’re stronger than you ever thought you could be.
For me, 2025 started with a wedding and a beautiful European elopement.
It ended with a cancer diagnosis.
2026 has been about fighting my way back to the life I was supposed to be living.
I’m not at the finish line yet.
But I’m getting there.
And I have my husband, my little Ted and a whole lot of life ahead of me.
And I can’t wait to see what comes next.
