MUM’S LITTLE XMAS MIRACLE AFTER HEALTH SCARE
A WOMAN diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 14 weeks pregnant is spending Christmas with her baby son after a year spent juggling treatment, childbirth and caring for her precious newborn.
Sharon Grant gave birth to a healthy baby boy in July despite being diagnosed four months earlier and undergoing surgery and chemotherapy while still pregnant.
The 41-year-old featured in a Cancer Research UK TV advert on Boxing Day as the charity launched its Right Now campaign.
Sharon, who grew up in Valley, Anglesey, said: “I knew you could get lumps in your breast when you were pregnant, but normally this didn’t happen until the second trimester.
“As it was still quite early in my pregnancy, I was encouraged to get it looked at straight away. My GP referred me to the breast clinic.
“I still didn’t think it could be cancer, even after the tests. It was only after my surgeon told me what the next steps would be when the biopsy results came through that I realised he hadn’t at any point said it wasn’t cancer.
“That’s when I realised there was a chance it was. I had a sleepless four nights before we got the results.”
Sharon, a nanny who attended Ysgol Uwchradd Bodedern and Bangor University, said she and her husband Sam weren’t given the option of waiting until after the birth for treatment to begin. “Even if we had been, I wouldn’t have taken it,” she said. “What was the point in having a baby if his mum wasn’t going to be there?
“The doctors explained that, apart from not having radiotherapy until after the birth, the treatment – a lumpectomy and chemotherapy – would be exactly the same as it would have been if I hadn’t been pregnant.
“They reassured me that the only risk would be from having an anaesthetic, but that would be minimal.
“I talked about it with Sam, and we agreed if any difficult decisions had to be made my life would take priority.
“I had the lumpectomy in March, and as soon as I came round I was taken in a wheelchair for an ultrasound. I can barely remember it I was so woozy, but they told me the baby was fine.”
Sharon, who’s lived in London since 2004, then began chemotherapy. On the evening following her ninth session, her waters broke and she went into labour four weeks early.
She had an emergency caesarean and her son Thomas was born on July 27 weighing 5lb 10oz.
“In a way, being pregnant gave me something to focus on other than thinking about the chemotherapy and, in the same way, having chemo was a distraction from worry about my pregnancy,” she said.
Sharon finished radiotherapy on October 17 and will now be celebrating Christmas at home with her family, including stepdaughter Lucy and her mum and dad, who will travel from Anglesey to be with them.