‘People say how are you so strong? I don’t have a choice’

Carol Williamson, 65, was first diagnosed with breast cancer on June 3 2015.

She said “I went for a routine mammogram. I wasn’t poorly and didn’t have any lumps, I wouldn’t have known.

“I was devastated. You don’t take it in at first. People used to say to me ‘how are you so strong?,’ and I would reply, ‘I don’t have a choice’.”

On July 30, Carol had a mastectomy. Six weeks later a lymph nodes clearance under her arm also showed evidence of cancer and months of gruelling chemotherapy followed.

This is the third time Carol will have done the Real Monty.

She said: “I think it’s wonderful.It gets the message out there to everybody, ladies and men, that they need to check, check, check.”

In September 2020, Sarah Dargue, 50, felt a buzzing in her chest and had a pain in her arm which she thought may be tennis elbow.

Sarah was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. She said: “The first thought that went through my mind was that I was going to die.”

Sarah had a lumpectomy, a full lymph node clearance. and weeks of chemotherapy.

She said: “They took the tumour with clear margins and did the chemo as a mop up.

“There are no checks, but there’s still a massive chance that it’s going to come back.

“People have no idea what you go through every day.”

Elaine Cunnington, 55, was called for a mammogram at 47 which showed she had benign calcification in her breast which did not need treatment.

Three years later, when her mammogram showed she needed further investigations, she wasn’t overly worried.

She said: “There was nothing to see or feel, I thought it was the same thing again.

“When I was told I had cancer I just went numb.”

Elaine had an operation to remove part of her breast.

Tests three weeks later showed there were still cancerous cells and a second part of the breast needed removing, and a further check led to another operation, Elaine’s third in just 51 days.

She said: “I never had any fear for my life, I just knew I was going to be alright. I just feel so lucky.”

Jo Laking, 57, discovered she had breast cancer during her first mammogram in 2015.

She said: “I didn’t have any lumps and I wasn’t poorly.

“My mammogram just looked as though someone had sprinkled a sachet of sugar through my breast.

“I had to have a right side mastectomy with immediate reconstruction.

“I celebrated five years cancer free in October 2020, but in March 2021 I noticed something in my left breast. It was a local recurrence of HER2 positive aggressive breast cancer.”

Jo had surgery to remove the tumour, chemo, radiotherapy and six months of targeted drug therapy. After nine months of treatment, she was given the all-clear.

She said: “When Carol said ‘You’re doing the Ladies Real Monty’, I thought: ‘Why not?’ It’s a good way to say I’m here, I’m alive and it’s wonderful.”