I was nine weeks pregnant when told I had breast cancer
After receiving the news, LAUREN JACKSON was faced with surgery and chemotherapy – all before giving birth
CHASING her giggling daughter around the sunlit garden of their family home it’s clear that Lauren Jackson is revelling in the joy of motherhood. And little wonder as Lauren, 31, endured an exhausting ordeal to bring Florence, now 14 months, into the world.
Aged just 29, Lauren, from Cricklade, near Swindon, was diagnosed with grade 3 breast cancer : a cancer that if left untreated could kill her.
It’s a devastating blow for any woman but all the more so because she was nine weeks pregnant . As she sat in her consultant’s offi ce it was made clear that the best outcome for her health was not to continue with the pregnancy.
“But there was no question of me not keeping the baby,” says Lauren. “However early it was I knew I ’ d do everything I could to protect this life growing inside me.”
When Lauren, a secondary school languages teacher, fi rst found a lump in her left breast three and a half years ago she wasn’t worried – a sentiment shared by her doctor.
“I mentioned it in passing during another appointment but he said it didn’t feel like a cause for concern though I should let him know if it changed .”
By spring 2013, about a year after she fi rst noticed the lump, Lauren and her husband Mike, 35, decided to try for a baby. She became pregnant quickly – at which point she noticed the lump had changed.
“It hadn’t grown bigger but it was a different shape . This time the doctor referred me but I wasn’t concerned . It seemed routine.”
It was only when a consultant wanted to do a biopsy after an ultrasound at Swindon General Hospital that Lauren started to think it might be serious.
“The consultant said, ‘ When you come back next week we’ll know if it’s cancerous.’ It was the fi rst time the C word ha d been mentioned, my stomach lurched.”
AWEEK later, by then nine weeks pregnant, Lauren and Mike returned to the hospital to receive the news they had been dreading: Lauren had an 18mm grade 3 invasive ductal carcinoma.
“It was horrendous,” she says. “Of course we’d talked about this outcome but I think we’d convinced ourselves it wasn’t going to be cancer.”
The couple faced an immediate decision: were they going to continue with the pregnancy? “It was made clear that the best outcome for me would be if we didn’t but I couldn’t listen. However tiny my baby was then, it was still my baby.”
In the days that followed Lauren learned what her options were. “I asked to see a consultant obstetrician so I could talk to her about the effects of treatment on my pregnancy. I needed to know if anything I did would put the health of the baby at risk.”
A week later one of the hospital’s obstetricians confi rmed that there was no reason why she could not continue with her pregnancy.
“She told me that they would be able to alter the doses of chemotherapy I received so the baby wouldn’t be harmed. Ordinarily you would have six cycles but I would have eight at a reduced dosage.”
First, though, Lauren had to have the tumour removed as soon as it was safe for her to have an anaesthetic – in her case once the baby had reached 12 weeks. “I had the 12- week scan where I saw my beautiful baby, then a few days later I was back in hospital to have a lumpectomy. It was surreal.”
The lumpectomy was successful and the cancer hadn’t spread but Lauren had to start chemotherapy once her pregnancy reached 20 weeks.
“When I went for my 20- week scan I’d had my fi rst lot of chemotherapy four days before and every bit of my body hurt.
“I remember the sonographer asking me to roll on to my left so that she could get a better view and I couldn’t as it was too painful .” Yet even that could n’t dampen the joy she and her husband felt when they learned they were having a girl.
“It was a huge moment because we had been curbing our enthusiasm a little, worried about the effects of the anaesthetic but now we could start planning.”
Lauren didn’t once succumb to self- pity despite on occasion being left so exhausted by the chemotherapy that she couldn’t get out of bed for days.
“My view was that I could either feel sorry for myself or just get on with it to make sure my baby and I were OK . That’s what I focused on. In some ways my pregnancy helped me to get through it all – the baby gave me a reason to be positive.”
At about seven- and- a- half months pregnant she had to have a blood transfusion to stimulate her bone marrow as her blood count was so low. Two days later she went into labour, six weeks early and just two days before she was due to receive her sixth session of chemotherapy.
“When I was in labour the oncologist was trying to talk to me about dates to reschedule the chemo but I was in too much pain to care.”
Florence was born three days later, a perfect little girl who was remarkably strong despite her early arrival. “She was so beautiful,” Lauren recalls. “Mike and I couldn’t stop staring at her.”
BUT their joy was short- lived as just four days after she was born Florence suffered a perforated bowel which required immediate surgery at a hospital in Bristol.
Determined to be by her daughter’s side, Lauren postponed her sixth chemotherapy session. “I couldn’t even think about cancer – all I cared about was my daughter.”
After two nail- biting weeks , Florence was transferred back to Swindon, allowing Lauren to combine her fi nal three doses of chemotherapy with looking after her daughter. Six weeks of daily radiotherapy followed, although by now a fully- recovered Florence had come home.
A year on and Lauren is fully recovered too . She had her fi rst mammogram, which came back clear and was discharged from her oncology unit two weeks ago.
“It was a wonderful moment,” says Lauren, who will have to take the oestrogen- blocking drug tamoxifen for the next 10 years, meaning another baby is out of the question.
“If I wanted to get pregnant again I would have to stop taking it which would put me at risk of getting cancer again . So Florence will be our only one.”
She is, she says, more than enough. “She is the most amazing little person and every day Mike and I are glad to have her in our lives.”
Lauren is taking part in London’s Electric Run on May 2 in aid of Breast Cancer Care. Please visit breastcancercare.org. uk/electricrun