‘My family had to watch me suffer’
Elizabeth Whitworth, 51, lives in Heaton Mersey with her husband, Mike, 35. She has three daughters, Natalie, 25, Emily, 22, and Isabel, 15. Placing her hand under my armpit, the doctor pressed down on my skin. It was February 2019, and I’d arranged an appointment after finding a lump in my breast, but the doctor found another lump under my arm, which she said could also be a sign of breast cancer. For months, I’d had shooting pains in my chest and felt exhausted, but I’d put it down to approaching 50 and juggling my dental-nurse job with a university course and my family. Plus my husband, Mike, was a personal trainer and always had me out jogging or hiking. When I found a lump, I worried. A year earlier, my mum, Freda, then 71, had needed a lumpectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer in the same week as her sister. Even so, I was shocked to be told I had stage 3, Her2positive breast cancer – a growth-promoting protein meant my cancer could spread faster than others. It had already spread to my lymph nodes. The lump under my arm was cancerous, yet just days before I hadn’t even known that we have breast tissue in our armpits.
‘If Nana can beat cancer, so can you,’ my daughter, Isabel, said after I’d told my girls. We were all devastated.
During chemotherapy, I was violently sick and ended up in hospital multiple times because of low blood-count and potassium levels. By February 2020, I’d had both breasts removed and wasn’t able to have reconstructive surgery so had to accept my changed body. In time, I came to terms with being a ‘flat lady’. Now, the tumour and 24 lymph nodes have been removed, but I’m not in remission yet. The psychological impact of cancer has been the worst part – it has been traumatic for everyone to see me suffer. I urge you all to check your breasts routinely.