In 2009 I got a pain in my left breast. I was running at the time and I didn’t think anything of it. The pain kept coming and going. I was moving around a lot, I was working and I used to jog from one place to another so I just didn’t really think anything of it.

In 2010 in January I was in bed and I got this really sharp pain in my left breast so then I thought, you know what- I will go to the doctor and just check it out because all I’m doing is laying down and it's still hurting. So I made an appointment and went to the doctor and she didn’t really know what was going on, so she made me an appointment with the breast clinic. They gave me a mammogram and I had a biopsy.

So then I had to go back for my results. I was at work and everyone was asking me how it was going and they said are you going on your own, and I said oh yeah, it’s nothing. I’m just going to go down and get my results and it will be absolutely fine. My manager looked at me in a particular way but I just didn’t see it at that point. So I went on my own and I was sat there as if I didn’t have a care in the world and the Doctor said “Isola, unfortunately it’s not good news.” And they said you’ve got breast cancer and at first I just said 0h, 0h, and then I cried. I told my son first then my daughter informed my family

I don’t know anything about cancer anyway because in my community and at home it was just never spoken about. I certainly didn’t know anything about breast cancer, I knew absolutely nothing, and I didn’t know anyone else who did either. At that point I thought oh I can get some tablets and it will be fine. But they said no, you need to have another appointment and they could really see that I just didn’t have a clue. That’s when I remembered the look on my manager's face and she had looked shocked. So I cried, then my partner came to pick me up and I told my daughter and family.

For some reason I didn’t take it as seriously as a lot of people do so, at the hospital they just assumed I didn’t really understand. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand, I just took it in a certain way and I wasn’t frightened by it. It never affected me in a way where I felt really devastated or that I had to just throw myself down and just cry. I never thought oh my life is over, that just did not even enter my head. So I went back into work and they were crying and I said what are you crying for! I wasn’t trying to be funny, but for me I said to them well it’s not as if I’ve lost my leg and my reality is well I’ve got too many pairs of shoes that I need to wear! And that was just where my process was.

At my hospital appointment it was really strange, they were showing me pictures and they were saying depending on what treatment you have this is what the scars are going to look like. So I looked at the pictures and they said to me “Well what’s wrong Isola? And I said “I can’t relate to any of that because the women in the pictures are all white.” So I just couldn’t relate to the picture ,so looking at the pictures didn’t confirm anything for me. Because everything they were showing me was of the white woman, well I’m not white. My next appointment was with the consultant and she had some pictures of some black women on her computer. She had got some feedback that I couldn’t relate. So they told me about keloid scarring. Well I knew a bit about that through my Dad, because he has keloid scarring, so I knew that it starts off red and then it can end up being darker than your own skin tone, and raised.

When I had the mastectomy and my reconstruction I just thought I would bounce straight back but actually when they say you will feel like you have been hit by a bus that is so true! At first I just couldn’t do anything, I didn’t have any energy but I got through that process. It took me a while but I did get through it, though I was off work for nearly a year.

Fortunately my blessing in disguise was that I didn’t need chemo. I was so lucky- I had the best consultant and the best plastic surgeon. So I thought to myself I need to raise awareness about breast cancer because I had come from a place where I didn’t know anything. So around this time a friend of mine went for a routine mammogram and they detected breast cancer in her. She went through an operation so whilst I was recovering I met with her and I said right we need to do something about this we need to raise awareness about breast cancer. So while I was getting better and 2010 we set up Beyond Cancer.

beyondcancer.org.uk

It’s been going for 13 years now today. And in this time we have reached out to so many people in the community. So from me not knowing a thing about cancer it has come to this and I am really proud of what we’ve achieved.

Then two years later I got my great nephew. And I am his kinship carer despite the fact that I was still recovering from cancer and everything else, My heart told me that I had to put myself forward and look after my great nephew because if I didn’t he would’ve gone in to care. And he would’ve been adopted and we wouldn’t have seen him until he was 18. And because of my background with young offenders and a big breakdown with parts of our family and everything else I felt that I needed to take him so he wouldn’t have to go through that process. I just did it because it was the right thing to do, it’s what my heart told me to do. He's 13 in June, so I’ve had him for 11 years now.