Meet the women who have beaten breast cancer and those still fighting

Reporter Lynn Eccles met some of the women who have beaten breast cancer and those who are still fighting.

Today more than 100 women in the UK will be diagnosed with breast cancer.

This month, Breast Cancer Awareness launched the All Join Together campaign, bringing breast cancer sufferers, their families, friends and supporters together to raise money for vital research.

Fund-raising events are taking place across Sussex throughout October.

Hair stylist Jenny Manning is having her head shaved to raise money for the charity after her boss Sam Winser was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Her fellow stylist at City Slickers Hair Design in Gardner Street, Kate Henderson, will do the dirty work.

Then Miss Manning's barber boyfriend Tom Revel will drop in from Tunbridge Wells to finish the job. He will carry out a complete wet shave, removing all traces of the 23-year-old's locks, which she describes as red, blue, black, long on one side and short at the other, with blue and white hair extensions.

She said: "I am apprehensive about it but it is all for a good cause so I don't really care."

Miss Manning, of Sandridge, Crowborough hopes to raise £1,000 for the charity.

The sponsored head shave will take place on Wear It Pink day, Friday, October 27, when everyone is urged to wear pink in support of the charity.

City Slickers will be selling pink GHD hair straighteners and fixing pink hair extensions to mark the day, with a proportion of sales going to Breast Cancer Awareness.

Ladies at the Esporta salon at Brighton Health and Racquet Club are also having it all off for Breast Cancer Awareness month.

The salon is hosting a sponsored wax-athon.

For a minimum £5 donation, they will give you a free wax.

Esporta's Kirsty Scott said: "If you are feeling more adventurous, you can get sponsored to have a more extreme wax.

"Two of the guys from here have already put their names down for back, crack and sack waxes."

The sponsored wax-a-thon will take place on Sunday, October 29.

The club has also organised a membersonly quiz night on Thursday, October 26.

Fifty per cent of the proceeds will go to the charity.

Ms Scott said: "So many people suffer from cancer it seemed like something we could all support."

• Mena McWilliams, 52
• 
  When Mena McWilliams turned 50, she was invited to go for a mammogram like thousands of other women around the country.

The breast screening programme in the UK invites all women aged between 50 and 70 to go for a mammogram every three years.

Ms McWilliams, 52, said: "It didn't even cross my mind something would be wrong."

After her first mammogram, she was called back to the Royal Sussex County Hospital for a second test.

She said: "Even at this stage I did not think there was anything wrong. I had a frozen shoulder the first time I went in and I just thought they had not been able to do it properly."

After the second mammogram, the hospital did a further scan and a biopsy on her left breast.

The results of the biopsy showed that Ms McWilliams, who lives in Fourth Avenue, Hove, had cancerous cells within the milk ducts of her breast.

She said: "Thankfully they were all still contained within the breast but if just one of them had got out, it could have been much worse."

She had her left breast removed on Friday, March 13, just weeks after the initial mammogram.

She said: "I was terrified going into hospital, absolutely scared stiff that something was going to go wrong.

"When I went back for my check-up, I was expecting to have to have chemotherapy and all that but they got it all. I've had no follow-up treatment at all.

"To me, even after having my breast removed, it was all good news - just to find out it had all gone completely."

Eighteen months after having her breast removed, she is thinking about having reconstructive surgery.

She said: "I have been wearing a false one and it doesn't bother me at all except when I go swimming. I go to a regular water aerobics class and it is fine because all the other girls know all about it and are fantastic but I do feel a bit self-conscious.

"But mainly I am better now, I don't take life for granted, every day is a bonus to me.

"I think I am a lot more mellow, I don't let little things get me down."

Ms McWilliams celebrated her 52nd birthday on Monday - a birthday she thought she might never see.

She said: "I'd urge anyone called in for a screening to go. If I hadn't have gone, who knows what might have happened."

• Celia Twining, 57
• 
  Celia Twining found a lump in her breast while she was watching TV.

She said: "I had a persistent itch just at the top of my breast and I was scratching and rubbing it while I was watching TV and even when I went to bed that night it was still itchy and very sore.

"Eventually I felt a hard area just under the skin about five centimetres long. The following morning I went straight to my doctor."

Ms Twining, 57, was referred to the breast care clinic.

She said: "I was 48 at the time and everyone kept telling me I was too young to have breast cancer."

Ms Twining was diagnosed with breast cancer and advised to have a mastectomy or an aggressive course of chemotherapy.

She said: "I was very worried about losing my breast, it felt like I was losing part of my femininity, losing a part of me.

"They gave me a couple of weeks to think about it because they couldn't fit me in for a mastectomy for six weeks.

"During that time I decided to get a second opinion and my family paid for me to go to the Royal Marsden in Surrey."

Ms Twining, of Westbourne Street, Hove, was advised that chemotherapy would shrink the tumour and could save her breast.

She said: "Thankfully, they agreed to treat me at the Marsden as an NHS patient and I began chemotherapy."

The chemotherapy shrunk Ms Twining's lump and she was able to have a lumpectomy in April 1998, where just the lump and a small area around it are removed.

Ms Twining remained cancer free and was discharged completely two years ago.

She said: "Having cancer brings you face to face with the reality that you are not immortal.

"Life is very precious and I decided to make the most of it. It taught me you shouldn't be afraid. I think to myself, I've faced cancer, I can face anything."

This new appetite for life inspired Ms Twining so much that when she was made redundant from her job as a social worker, she took up acting.

She said: "Through the Brighton Breast Cancer Support Group I made a video for Breast Cancer UK, which involved celebrities and other women who had faced cancer.

"I really enjoyed it and from there have gone into doing a bit of extra work for TV and film. I am also a member of the New Venture Theatre and Brighton Community Singers."

• Sarah Steele, 43
• 
  Mother-of-seven Sarah Steele, 43, was bending down to put some washing in the tumble dryer when she felt a lump in her breast.

She said: "I never checked my breasts and may never have found it, it was just luck."

Mrs Steele's doctor told her not to worry as breast cancer is very rare in pre-menopausal women but she was referred to the breast care clinic at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

The day after her appointment for a mammogram, the hospital called her back for more tests.

She said: "I tried to convince myself it was harmless but in the back of my mind, I knew. It was such a hard lump I knew it was something nasty."

After more tests, the clinic confirmed it was cancer. Just days later, Mrs Steele had her right breast removed.

During the operation, the hospital found a second lump much further back.

Mrs Steele, of Beckworth Close, Worthing, said: "The mastectomy didn't bother me at all, I was just so glad to get the cancer out."

Mrs Steele's cancer had also spread to one of her lymph nodes, so she underwent a six-month course of chemotherapy.

She said: "A few weeks into the chemotherapy I started losing my hair.

"That was awful, it was worse than losing a breast. It was such a physical sign of my illness."

Mrs Steele has also undergone radiotherapy.

She said: "At first I didn't want to know how bad it was. I think sometimes you can have too much knowledge.

"Later I found out more about it. I learned I was HER2 positive, which is one of the most aggressive forms of cancer."

Being HER2 receptive meant Mrs Steele would respond well to Herceptin but she had to fight Worthing Primary Care Trust to get the lifesaving drug.

She said: "Now I am on Herceptin I feel much better and my hair has grown back.

"I had my first hair since last August recently and my hair has grown back curly."

For the moment Mrs Steele's cancer has all but gone.

She said: "They don't say remission but it is as close to being in remission as it can be. But it could come back at any time."

She added: "I would say to anyone who finds a lump or notices any changes in their breasts to get it checked out and don't be fobbed off by your doctor.

"Any woman who has got a lump needs to be checked out."

• Denise Bartup, 44
• 
  Former library officer Denise Bartup, 44, found a lump in her breast while she was in the bath.

After treatment, which initially appeared to be successful, the cancer returned and spread to her lymph nodes, bones and liver.

The mother-of-two has been told her cancer is incurable and she receives daily care for the pain. At the moment, her cancer is not spreading and she remains relatively healthy.

Mrs Bartup said: "I always use a sponge or flannel or something like that in the bath but for some reason that day I did not have one, so I was just soaping myself down with my hand when I felt a lump under my breast. I shouted for my husband, Andrew, and he came bounding up the stairs, he must have heard the panic in my voice."

Mr Bartup had an appointment with the doctor the following morning and the couple decided Mrs Bartup should go along as well to have the lump checked out. She said: "The doctor was pretty cross we had both turned up at the surgery and kept saying that at 37, I was too young to have breast cancer."

By the time Mrs Bartup attended her appointment two weeks later, she had convinced herself it was nothing.

She said: "I was quite naive. Even when they took me into a room with chintzy curtains and a big box of tissues, I still didn't click."

Mrs Bartup, of Cowley Drive, Brighton, was told she had a grade five tumour, the most aggressive form of cancer, and would need a lumpectomy immediately. She was operated on in July 1999.

She said: "After the operation I remember thinking: I have got away with this'."

But in her follow-up appointment, Mrs Bartup discovered the surgeons had found another tumour while performing her lumpectomy but had been unable to reach it.

The doctor recommended she have her left breast removed.

Following the mastectomy, Mrs Bartup was cancerfree for 18 months.

She had just begun to think about breast reconstruction when she found a lump near her collarbone.

Mrs Bartup's cancer had come back. It had spread to her lymphatic system and was untreatable.

She added: "There could be more support for people like me.

I feel like I am constantly fighting.

"I am fighting the cancer but I am also fighting for treatment.

There is something of an attitude of we can't do anything for you now, go away and die quietly'.

"But I won't die quietly. I am constantly reading up on research, finding out about new drugs.

"This disease has already robbed me of so much, it won't rob me of everything."

Checking your breasts

Breast Cancer Awareness has a five-point code for good breast health:
1) Know what is normal for you;
2) Know what changes to look and feel for;
3) Look and feel;
4) Report any changes to your GP;
5) Attend routine breast screening if you are aged 50 or over.

Women should look for the following symptoms:

• A change in the size or shape of the breast. It may be that one breast has become noticeably larger or lower;
• Changes in the nipple, such as a change in direction of the nipple or an unusual discharge;
• Changes around the nipple, such as an unusual rash or sore area;
• Changes in the skin, such as puckering, dimpling or redness;
• A new lump or swelling under your armpit or around your collarbone (where the lymph nodes are);
• A lump or thickening in your breast that feels different from the rest of the breast tissue;
• Constant pain in one part of your breast or in your armpit (although pain without any other symptoms is unlikely to be due to cancer).

For more information call the Breast Cancer Care helpline free on 0808 800 6000 (textphone 0808 800 6001) or visit the website at www.breastcancercare.org.uk

If you have recently been diagnosed with cancer and need local support, there is a group that meets on the third Monday of every month between 6pm and 8pm at the Brighthelm Centre, North Road, Brighton. For more information, call Margaret Felton on 01273 403609.