Diagnosed with breast cancer in
2016, Eleanor Clarke, 53, reveals her
struggle with the disease and howfamily support helped her cope...
C
ome on mum,’ said my
daughter grabbing my
hand, as we neared the
end of our 5k run at
Race for Life in July 2018.
I’ll never forget that moment as
we sprinted over the finish line,
her beaming, and me, well, looking
like I was half dead. All I could think
about was, ‘I’ve only just gone and
bloody done it.’
I didn’t just mean completing five
kilometres in 30C, or raising £1,000
for Cancer Research, but the fact that
I was even standing here, let alone
running. Looking back to the year
before, as I was midway through
a gruelling six-session course of
chemotherapy, I could only dream
about doing a charity run.When everything
changed
Twenty months earlier, in November
2016, my world was turned upside
down. I was getting ready for bed when
my husband noticed some puckering
on my right nipple. Placing my hands on
my breast, it felt lumpy.
I did check my breasts, but only
occasionally. And I rarely looked at my
boobs in a mirror – a key part of self-
examination. I’d also had a mammogram
a year earlier that had come back clear,
luring me into a false sense of security.
I panicked – what if I had cancer?
Two days later I saw my GP, who
examined me and agreed I needed to be
referred to a breast surgeon. Ten days
later, I was having the full works – anexamination, a mammogram, an
ultrasound and a biopsy. The biopsy
was the most upsetting. I was proud of
my décolletage and didn’t want a scar
blemishing it. In light of what was to
come, this was nothing.The diagnosis
Four days later, I received a call from
my surgeon to come in. As I sat in the
waiting room, I was nervous but
optimistic. I’d read so many leaflets that
I’d almost convinced myself it would be
a non-malignant lump. So when the
surgeon held my hand and said, ‘I’m
very sorry to tell you that you have
breast cancer’, there was just an
overwhelming feeling of shock.
He explained I would have to have
an MRI scan to determine if I would‘I wouldn’t let
cancer^
MY LIFE
treatment
consume
’