December 2021

After a close friend shared the news of her mums breast cancer diagnosis, it became something we spoke about daily. A conversation that I'd never really had in depth with anyone before, it made me question why I had never checked myself?

It had simply never crossed my radar at my age, until now.

So that week, one evening before bed I checked myself and that was when I first felt it.

A small hard gritty kind of lump at the side of my right boob, not visible and you had to really push into the skin wall to feel it.

January 2022

After Christmas was over, and I'd enjoyed a million pigs in blankets & too many Baileys I had to face picking up the phone. An appointment over the phone was given to me that same day, my GP simply responded with, ‘’you are young, it's likely just to be hormonal. Let's allow a few weeks to see if it will simply just disappear on it’s on own’’.

Fast forward almost 3 weeks...

(Later learning the guidelines should have been within 2 weeks)

28th January 2022

My first face to face appointment at my local GP Surgery.

The nurse had a good old feel and yep confirmed I still do have a lump.

Referral now sent to the hospital…

3rd February 2022

William Harvey Hospital

Anxiously sat in the waiting room for what felt like an eternity, after 80 minutes we were finally called in. (When I say ‘we’ I mean my amazingly supportive partner, who has been by my side in every appointment from the very beginning).

Now it suddenly felt a lot more serious in a hospital room and the uneasy vulnerable feeling washed over me as the consultant examined my boobs. But this quickly past as after a few brief questions, he then also confirmed 'yep it's a lump', and almost shrugged it off suggesting it’s likely to just be a cyst.

Okay so at this point after seeing 2 different medical professionals neither thinking it was anything more sinister, both leading me to believe it's just likely to be a cyst ''because of my age''.

But just to be safe he requested for me to have an ultra sound...