When Laura Price, 40, found her cancer had returned, she decided to make the most of the little things
WORDS: LAURA PRICE ©FABULOUS/NEWS LICENSING
Real life from the heart
Waiting for the doctor in the hospital consulting room, I felt numb. I knew what was coming, yet a tiny part of me hoped I was mistaken. Then the oncologist walked in and said, ‘It's not good news,’ shattering all the hope I had left. He explained the breast cancer I thought I’d been cured of 10 years earlier had been lurking in my body all along, and a potato-sized tumour had taken root in my sternum bone. I had stage-four breast cancer – it was treatable but incurable.
I’d gone into the room alone to try to protect my partner Mark, and was dreading telling him – we’d only been together just over a year. After I came out, we sat on a bench and I broke the news. Mark, 48, was shocked – he hadn’t allowed himself to think the worst. But within minutes, he put on a brave face, reassuring me that we could get through anything.
When given a life-limiting diagnosis, lots of people write a bucket list. But as I sobbed in Mark’s arms, I didn’t want a trip to the Seychelles or to go bungee jumping; I wanted to hold him and enjoy the simple pleasures many take for granted, like lying on the sofa watching Gogglebox with a plateful of food and our cats, Cosme and Cleo, on our laps.
STOLEN CHOICE
I was first diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2012, aged 29, after finding a lump in my left breast. Even though I’d had several misdiagnoses and it took four months to be diagnosed, I was lucky as the cancer hadn’t spread beyond my breast and was curable.
While my friends were getting married and having babies, I turned 30 with a bald head in the middle of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. I’d always assumed I’d have kids, but I spent the next decade perimenopausal thanks to the treatment, and mostly single, slowly accepting that I’d probably never be a mother. It saddened me that cancer had taken away my choice.
I was given the all-clear and sent off to live my life in the aftermath of treatment, which included fatigue and hot flushes, not to mention the effects on my mental health. Alongside tablets to suppress my oestrogen, I had annual MRI scans, and as every year passed, I hoped I was done with cancer for good.
I spent the next 10 years living life to the full. In 2013, I quit my job at Facebook in Dublin and moved to London to study for a master’s degree in magazine journalism, something I’d always wanted to do. Afterwards, I found a j
