True-Life
I have until December before my dream is snatched away
Amy Stavers, 30, Chester-le-Street
Prodding my breasts as I stood under the shower, I checked for any changes, bumps and lumps.
I’d had harmless cysts before so I checked often, just to be sure.
And this time I thought I felt something in my left boob.
Out of the shower, I lay on the bed, arm above my head. I pressed down, having a proper poke around.
‘There’s a huge lump,’ I told my partner Kieran, then 20, that evening in May 2019. ‘It’s the size of a golf ball.’
But I wasn’t too worried, thinking it’d be another benign cyst.
Only this time the GP referred me to the breast clinic for a biopsy.
I was stunned when docs said it was cancer. A lumpectomy confirming stage 2, grade 3 breast cancer.
I was only 25. The consultant explained it was hormone positive cancer, caused by too many hormones in my body.
Nine years earlier, after I’d given birth to my son Dylan, I’d had a contraceptive implant fitted in my left arm – a device releasing progesterone, preventing pregnancy.
It hadn’t been the cause, but now it had to be removed, and fast. ‘We can’t risk feeding the cancer,’ the consultant explained.
The following month, I had a single mastectomy.
After, I hated being lopsided, always wearing a prosthetic in the left cup of a special surgical bra.
As I started chemo, Dylan and I moved in with Kieran.
They were both so supportive, especially little Dylan, who helped Kieran make dinner in the evenings.
But even at home, I was self-conscious going braless. ‘It looks so obvious,’ I confided in Kieran.
‘You’re as beautiful as ever,’ he replied, but I kept my bra on, even in bed. Chemo was gruelling and when I asked my mum Deborah, then 55, to shave off my long, dark hair as it had started falling out, Dylan and Kieran both shaved theirs in solidarity.
I was paranoid, worried the cancer could come back
After chemo came radiotherapy, and at the end of 2020, the magic words…
‘There’s no evidence of the disease,’ the consultant confirmed.
For the next 10 years, I’d need to take a hormoneblocking drug, tamoxifen, and have tests every year. But otherwise, I was OK. Relief!
And in May 2021, Kieran and I tied the knot at St Cuthbert’s Church in front of 30 of our nearest and dearest.
A perfect day.
Afterwards, we found ourselves talking more and more about wanting to try for a baby.
It wasn’t safe to get pregnant on tamoxifen so, under medical guidance, I temporarily came off the meds, which docs explained would take two months to ‘wash out’ of my system.
But Kieran and I tried for a year with no joy, so we
