Claire's story

"Allow yourself to have bad times but to force yourself to pick yourself up and find anything you enjoy to improve your mood and make you want to keep living."

I’m Claire Molyneux, I live in Sheffield with my husband. I’m very glad to have seen our children grow up and Katie is now 30 and Tom 27. I took early retirement on ill health grounds from my Council Officer job at age 48.

I was diagnosed with primary breast cancer over 13 years ago in early 2012. I then discovered the cancer had spread to my bones three years later - over 10 years ago (easy maths)! With my primary cancer I had my lymph nodes removed as it had spread there, a mastectomy, and immediate reconstruction. I then had 12 cycles of FEC chemotherapy. I later had a breast reduction on my other side and went on to Tamoxifen. I am ER+\HER2 low. 

At the beginning of January 2015, I started getting really bad back pain. Having heard that the most common place breast cancer spreads to is the spine, I immediately went to my GP who reassured me that there was nothing to worry about. Thankfully I had my annual check up with my oncologist one month later who I mentioned the pain to and who referred me for a bone scan. The rest is history. 

I had five years on Letrozole, without Palbociclib, as that wasn’t available on the NHS then. I had monthly Zolodex injections for seven years until I was 55 and had monthly Denusumab injections which I now have every six weeks. 

During COVID times my Letrozole stopped working and my cancer seemed to have become pretty resistant to other treatments too. For the next year, I rattled through Fulvestrant with Palbociclib (which had become available); E&E (Exemestane and Evirolinmus); and Capecitabine. None of them worked for long for me. Then, four years ago I started on Paclitaxel which worked for two years and now I am on Eribulin which I have also been on for two years. I’m having my three monthly scan next week so hopefully I will find out that it is still working. I’m getting increasingly fatigued by four years of weekly IV chemo but still have a great life on the whole. I have been doing loads of travelling and I do something nice every day. 

My advice to anyone with SBC is to allow yourself to have bad times but to force yourself to pick yourself up and find anything you enjoy to improve your mood and make you want to keep living. I appreciate my life, my family and my friends so much and don’t lose sight of that. I accept that some days are going to be hard but that it always gets better again.