Sally’s Story

Hi, I’m Sally. I’m 59 and I’ve been with my husband Gerry for 37 years. We have 2 adult children, Daniel and Alicia, who both live at home, and 3 dogs. I do sewing jobs at home. I used to be an Avon representative, until Avon suddenly finished in Australia last year.

In November 2015 I found a lump under my right arm, which was a cancerous lymph node from aggressive tumours in my breast. In December, at 56, I had a mastectomy, 22 lymph nodes removed, and a tissue expander inserted by my plastic surgeon. I had 6 months of chemo, then had 6 weeks of radiotherapy and suffered horrible burns. After chemo a PET scan revealed lung mets, and a bone scan in 2017 showed bone mets. There is a family history of cancer. My older sister was treated for breast cancer, and my mother did too.

I also had a pre-existing problem. I got a herniated disc when I had a car accident 22 years ago. When I started having Faslodex injections in October 2017, they caused severe back pain, and triggered my lymphoedema. But I try to keep fit doing lots of exercise by walking and doing hydrotherapy.

It was important to me to have a breast reconstruction, but I had to wait 12 months after radiation to have the expander removed and an implant inserted. Last year I had several plastic surgery procedures, but I still don’t feel that my breasts are even.

I joined Thursday Girls in early 2018, after finding a notice at Day Oncology at Epworth Eastern. I have tended to deal with my problems alone, but now as well as going to Thursday Girls I belong to a Facebook group called Pink Sisters. So I belong to two groups of people who I can talk to and who understand.

I have lots of tatts that are about important events and people in my life. I have 2 tatts relating to my cancer experience - ‘survivor’ and the most recent one ‘fighter’!

January 2019