Real lives
Breast Cancer Awareness Month
When Amanda Hanison, 52, from London, learned she had breast cancer, she’d only been with her boyfriend a matter of months. Would it destroy their relationship?
Stretching out on the sunbed, I let out a contented sigh. ‘This is the life,’ I thought. My boyfriend, David, and I had been together for 18 months and were on our first holiday, in Hong Kong, relaxing by the pool. Glancing down at myself, I spotted a lump just above the line of my swimsuit on my left breast. I wasn’t alarmed. I’d noticed it at home a while earlier so, saying nothing about it, I just made a mental note to get it checked out the next time I saw the doctor.
Back home, in my GP’s surgery, I said: ‘I’ve been noticing this fatty lump.’ She asked me to take off my top and bra and raise my arms above my head, We both saw how my left breast changed shape and became inverted under the lump. She immediately made a referral for me to see a breast consultant.
I still didn’t feel unduly concerned: in my mind, it was just a fatty deposit. But two days later, I had a mammogram of both breasts, then was taken for an ultrasound scan, where I was told: ‘This is breast cancer. I can see it very clearly.’ The next step would be biopsies to confirm it. At 42, with no family history of breast cancer, I was stunned by shock.
That evening, I called David to tell him. He was a nice guy, genuine and warm, but our relationship was relatively new and I had no idea how he’d react. We’d been having a great time together and there had been no reason to talk about anything serious – until now.
‘How come you didn’t tell me sooner?’ he asked, calmly.
‘Because there was nothing to say until now,’ I answered.
UNCERTAIN FUTURE
That weekend, we were due to go to a friend’s party. Agreeing we wouldn’t say anything to anyone while things were so uncertain, I wore a lovely pink dress and we enjoyed ourselves. On the inside, of course, I was hoping the medics just might have made a mistake.
But a week later, following the biopsy results, the consultant confirmed breast cancer. The tumour lay under the fatty lump, pushing it upwards, and I faced surgery as well as months of treatment.
David came to see me at home later. ‘I have no idea where this is going,’ I told him. ‘I totally understand if you want to walk away.’ I was scared, but I felt it was only fair to say it. I had no choice but to see my diagnosis through, but he didn’t have to.
He took my hand. ‘I will be by your side through all of this,’ he said. ‘When you’re better, we’re going to have a happy future together.’
From then on, I felt less alone. His presence reassured me and soothed my anxiety. When I was walking to the operating theatre to have my single mastect
