FINDING A LUMP SPARKED MY WORRY
Business owner Alison Rooney, 44, lives with partner Andrew, 45, a chartered surveyor. They have two children, Lucia, 13, and Oren, six, and live in Blackburn. Alison says: BEFORE this photoshoot, I tried not to think about it because when I did I felt sick. My first reaction was ‘you must be joking’, but I eventually decided to do it, as I want to see myself in a different way.
My body is short, rectangular and now covered in scars. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2018 and had a mastectomy. I’ve got scars under my breast and a hip-to-hip scar across my tummy from the removal of skin tissue to build a reconstruction.
Last June, I found a cancerous lump under my arm and needed further surgery.
My chemotherapy causes eczema, leaving my skin, from head-to-toe, red and blotchy. It makes me want to hide my body from myself and everyone else. I’ve taken the baby step of having a tattoo of a flower on my breast reconstruction area, but I’m still hiding it from almost everyone.
When I was younger I was never body confident but when my son was six months old, I did a personal training course and, before long, I was a toned size eight. For the first time in my life, I honestly felt fantastic.
But it all changed when I stopped breastfeeding just before his second birthday — when I found the lump.
I’ve never felt confidence in my body since and it’s two years since I looked at myself naked in a mirror. I deliberately avoid looking in the one in my bedroom and in shop changing rooms I don’t look until I’m fully clothed. My partner thinks I look fabulous, but women know it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, does it?
When it came to taking off my clothes, I was really conscious about my skin. But examining myself full-length in the mirror I could see it didn’t look obvious. Now I realise how much headspace worrying about my scars took up. Now they’re not the first thing I see.
I will start looking at myself more often fully nude — it’s a revelation to discover it isn’t a big deal. I also feel inspired to get healthier again. No one is judging me; I do it to myself.