Stepping out and into the PINK
After battling cancer, Juliet Fitzpatrick is feeling positive about the future
‘January 2016 is when I was diagnosed with breast cancer after a routine mammogram. I felt completely healthy, so it was an enormous shock. The true severity didn’t really sink in until a couple of months later when I was told that I needed a mastectomy. After the operation, my husband, Liam, and grown-up children, Dan and Laura, were by my side. Over and over, they told me that I was still the same person I always had been and they’d never see me differently; yet, emotionally, I struggled to come to terms with the loss.
In hospital, Laura saw the scar before I was brave enough to look. I broke down, and she told me to let it out, to release my emotions and not to be scared. Her understanding and calmness had a huge effect.
I had four rounds of chemotherapy, which made me listless and fatigued. At times, I felt I didn’t want to leave my bedroom.
I lost my sense of taste and my hair came out in clumps. The day I asked Liam to shave it off was a very poignant moment.
Most of the time, I decided not to wear wigs, and though some people did take a second look, I soon became used to it – I was a cancer survivor, and I had nothing to be ashamed of. Dan and Laura both graduated last summer, and whenever I look at my bald head in the photos, I smile. It was a truly empowering day.
I’m determined to fill 2018 with exciting plans – volunteering for the charities that helped me, including Breast Cancer Now, launching my flower farming business and maybe training to be a personal trainer for older women. I have a renewed zest for life, and feel I’ve come out of my illness far more positive and resilient than before.’