Cancer victim told lumps were just side-effect of breastfeeding
A MOTHER died of breast cancer at 33 after lumps she found were initially dismissed as a side-effect of breastfeeding, her family claim.
Melanie Bray visited hospital twice in 2010 before she was diagnosed with cancer in May 2013.
Her mother Janet Willoughby said she was told the lumps were caused by breastfeeding and could not be cancerous as she was too young and there was no family history of the disease.
The mother-of-five died last month of a non-hereditary form which affects almost 25 per cent of women with breast cancer.
At the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro, she had insisted there was more to the lumps, her mother said.
But the cancer was missed twice by doctors at the hospital’s Mermaid
Centre, a specialist breast cancer unit. Miss Willoughby said: ‘ On her second visit to the Mermaid Centre [in June 2010] her breast was still all lumpy and bumpy, but again she was told it was because she had been breastfeeding.
‘[But] in 2013 she found a big lump on the side of her breast and was referred to the hospital again. She was diagnosed with HER2 Positive breast cancer. And we knew from then it was terminal … having no family history of breast cancer had nothing to do with it.’
She added: ‘After her diagnosis I was angry initially, and that anger has never really gone away. I’ve had to learn to live with it.
‘As soon as she was diagnosed, the treatment she received was great, but before that she had always known something wasn’t right and there was more to it. If she had been diagnosed sooner it could have been different.’
Miss Bray raised £15,000 for charity after her diagnosis and founded a campaign encouraging patients to push medics for further answers when they are unhappy with a diagnosis.
Miss Willoughby has moved into her daughter’s home to look after 11-year-old grandson Harley and granddaughters Shona, 18, Chloe 15, Caitlin, 14, and Elise, nine.
She is continuing Miss Bray’s Start Making Noise campaign.
‘Don’t ignore it,’ she said. ‘If you are not happy with your diagnosis then keep going back and back. Keep pushing the doctors for another answer. Melanie knew, she knew something wasn’t right in herself, but they didn’t listen.’
The Royal Cornwall Hospital was rated as ‘requires improvement’ following a January 2016 inspection by the Care Quality Commission.
A spokesman for Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust offered condolences to Miss Bray’s family, adding: ‘ Our breast care team follows clear guidelines on the diagnosis of possible breast cancer in young women, and are aware of the potential for the diagnosis in women of any age.’
‘Sadly early stage disease will not always be apparent, despite appropriate diagnostic tests … more aggressive cancers can develop rapidly over a very short period of time.’
‘Knew something wasn’t right’