Hi, I am 59 years old and live in South Cambridgeshire with my husband. I am a medical doctor and work as a consultant breast pathologist in a teaching hospital in London. I am also involved in genetic testing of cancer samples and breast cancer research.
I was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer in June 2025. I am very active normally and
was training to run a marathon in Paris. This was not just any marathon but the first time a
marathon had been run for the general public during the Paris Olympics in August 2024 on
the same course as the elite runners (not at the same time though but overnight between the men’s and women’s marathon races). I had done a lot of sport over three years to earn my place in the ballot and was so excited when I received an entry. My training didn’t go well because I broke my arm in a hiking accident at Easter that year so I lost eight weeks of training. When I did return, I was fine up to three weeks before the race. I then developed persistent hip pains that wouldn’t go away and eventually I had to pull out of the race on race day because I was limping badly.
It took me several months of no exercise to recover but then I started developing back pain in January 2025. This started as a niggly pain which came and went every few days and moved round my back and hips. Although I managed to run a 10K race raising money for CRUK in February 25 I eventually I had to stop running in mid-March because the pain was constant by then. By the time I saw a sports physio and then saw my GP I was taking prescription painkillers every 4 hours and couldn’t even get out of bed.
At first the physio and GP thought I had inflammatory arthritis but I didn’t respond to
steroids. Eventually the penny dropped when the rheumatologists did a CT scan which
showed that I had a ‘spectacular’ spread of metastatic cancer all round my body – both
lungs, a quarter of my liver, most of my spine, pelvis and both arms and both legs. On top of that I had five vertebral fractures – two between my shoulder blades and three in my lower
back which was the reason I had so much back pain. Everyone keeps telling me I must have
a high pain threshold if I managed to run a 10K with 5 fractures in my spine.
Getting the CT scan result was a shock because you never expect that you are going to have cancer. Also, there is a lot of publicity about checking your breasts for cancer but not much mention about persistent bone pain being a symptom of metastatic breast cancer. As a doctor you never imagine that you are going to get ill yourself. My poor husband thought I was going to die within the week and I was pretty scared myself especially since I had a 3cm tumour next to my heart.
I cannot thank enough the staff at my local hospital for getting me in and treated asap. Between getting the CT scan result to being seen in the first oncology clinic and starting treatment was 16 days. That included having and getting the results of a liver biopsy and bone scan. My tumour was hormone positive and I was put on letrozole, denosumab and ribociclib. Ribociclib has been a miracle for me – within four months I had stopped taking all painkillers and within 6 months I was back in the gym doing 4 spinning classes a week and doing 5km park walk. About 80% of my tumour has gone now according to my scans and blood results. I am living as near a normal life as possible and returned to work part time in Nov 25.
I strongly believe in a healthy diet and exercise. Doing lots of exercise has meant that I have had minimal menopausal symptoms, no side effects from other treatments and gives me the best chance of survival on top of the medical treatments I am having.
I quickly joined the local cancer help centre, mainly to find support for my husband but also to meet other people with cancer and share experiences. In my ‘day job’ I am on the other side of cancer and until now didn’t really appreciate the reality of what the diagnosis of secondary breast cancer means. Even a lot of doctors still envisage that secondary breast cancer patients are elderly and terminally ill, moribund in bed and permanently on death’s doorstep. Some may be, but the reality is that there are so many people with cancer in this country and so many young women with secondary breast cancer. We can’t all stop living when we get our diagnosis so we all need to find a way to navigate it plus carrying on with the rest of our lives. The reality is that there are women with a diagnosis of secondary breast cancer who are still alive more than 10 or 15 years later. I only found this out when I joined patient groups. Secondary breast cancer is becoming a chronic disease that we can control rather than being an immediate death sentence.
I already belonged to two breast cancer patient groups in my area but I only stumbled upon Make 2nds Count by chance. I was at a breast cancer conference in January this year when I came by the Make 2nds Count charity stall. The other patient support groups are great but almost everyone else has primary cancer and the particular issues and worries we have as SBC patients don’t always coincide with theirs. Also we are completely dependant on our oncologists to keep us alive which is different to the relationship one may have with one’s surgeon.
Finding out that I was a pathologist, Sarah Thomas rapidly asked me to be a speaker at the
Make 2nds Count Summit in March. Things rapidly progressed from there and I joined by local Make 2nsd Count Tea & Chat support group. At the Summit I met Clare Molyneux, who was also part of the secondary breast cancer community and was keen on sport and fundraising and we hit it off. We are doing the North Downs Challenge which is a 50K walk across the north Downs in Surrey on 01 August.
I want to use my skills to benefit other patient with (secondary) breast cancer. This includes
being active, so doing long distance hikes and raising money for charity is a great idea. It
also keeps my back flexible and helps stop my cancer returning which must be a win-win
situation.
I stay positive every day since I don’t want to waste what time I have left being depressed.
After seeing my first husband die young of a brain tumour I know that every day of life is
precious. I also don’t want to be on my deathbed and regret that I didn’t take the chance to do all the things on my bucket list. So that means I’ve got a lot of holidays to take and
charity walks to do in the coming years!
What can you do to support the challenge? You can have a go and raise money for M2C by
doing the race yourself. It doesn’t have to be 50K – you can walk or run as little as 10K. If
that’s not your thing then come and support us at the start/finish line in Guildford – it’s a
great town for shopping and there’s lots of things going on locally.
You can also support us by donating on our justgiving page - thank you!
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