Mum Tiffany has lost 'freedom' following cancer diagnosis
A Worthing mum, with incurable cancer, is fighting hard to raise awareness whilst also making lasting memories with her young children.
Tiffany Ryan was diagnosed with cancer in the breast and lymph node the day before her 37th birthday on March 25 last year.
After undergoing six rounds of chemotherapy and a mastectomy, Tiffany had hoped she was on the road to recovery.
But the mum-of-two was told by a consultant in January that her cancer had spread to her lungs and bones – and was now incurable.
The disease has since also spread to her pelvis.
“I will be on bone strengthener medication from April,” Tiffany said.
"That's all they can do. They can't remove a lung or pelvis so it's about slowing it down and hoping I have longer.
"At the moment, I'm not in pain. I'm not bed-bound. I'm going about my business in a way, as most people do.”
Tiffany, who lives with her husband and two children – aged three and seven – in Clapham, has set up a GoFundMe page to help her make lasting memories.
Before her diagnosis, she had been a full-time carer for her son, who is on the autistic spectrum.
Tiffany said her coping mechanism after the terminal cancer diagnosis is to ‘keep busy’.
"The moment you stop you start thinking and your thoughts get quite dark,” she said.
“The way I explain it to people my age, is it takes away your freedom.
"My husband said let's go away somewhere for two weeks.
"The problem is I have to be near the hospital. I'm on so many different medications and I have CT scans.
"It's hard to go away somewhere because you're tied to if you get an infection or get ill when you're abroad. It gets very complicated.
"You're either at home or in hospital and you can't go around.
"You can't do a day trip. Somewhere like London isn't possible when you've got a really low immune system.”
Tiffany said she and her family are ‘taking it a week at a time’.
They have plans in the pipeline to visit Combe Haven Holiday Park in Hastings to celebrate Tiffany’s 38th birthday and wedding anniversary.
She said: “It would be nice to have a weekend away from the house where the children can just be children. They can play on the playground, paint pottery, go swimming, go to an aquarium.
"That's what we're looking forward to at the moment. It really is trying to do what you can.
"It is so hard to compress years into one or two years.
"I have to compress birthdays, Christmases and every milestone I'm going to miss, in a limited time.
"I'm going to do memory boxes with audio notes as people often forget someone's speaking voice when they pass over.”
Tiffany is also continuing to raise awareness of her disease, with the hope of preventing future deaths in others.