Doc’s cancer find hit me like a brick

Oct 16 2009 by Sharon Liptrott, Dumfries Standard Friday

EVERY 11 minutes someone receives the devastating news that they have breast cancer.

For 38-year-old Shenagh Davidson of Newton Drive, Newbridge, it was “like being hit with a brick”.

Her happy family life with a nine-month-old baby was turned upside down overnight.

Now, almost five months on, she wants to raise awareness of the disease during Breast Cancer Awareness Month and to urge anyone who suspects they may have it to seek help immediately.

“I was totally unaware that someone of my age could contract this horrible disease, and I know that many others feel the same way,” she said. “It can be a life-threatening illness with difficult invasive treatments that has a huge emotional impact on the individual, their family and friends.

“But it is so important that you get diagnosed straight away and there is some wonderful help out there. The staff at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary and the Western General in Edinburgh are incredible and, together with the charity Breast Cancer Care, I cannot thank them enough.”

The Dumfries mum’s nightmare began just as she had returned to work as Dumfries and Galloway’s victim information and advice officer with the Procurator Fiscal office, after maternity leave.

She said: “I had finished with breast feeding my little boy, Jai, and everything was great.

“Then, out of the blue on a Sunday morning in April, I felt an itch or something on my right breast and when I rubbed it I felt a small pea-shaped lump. It was a simple as that.

“Of course, I told myself that it was just probably a blocked milk duct or something after all the breast feeding and I’ve always had a bit lumpy breasts anyway but something nagged at me.

“I asked my husband, John, to check and he agreed that there was definitely a lump. I phoned the doctor the next morning and they made an appointment for the breast clinic at the hospital.”

Within 10 days she was sat holding her husband’s hand in the infirmary with a morning session of mammograms, biopsies and ultrasound.

She said: “I had not told any of my family because I did not believe it was anything serious but as the morning became the afternoon I started to become really nervous. Then I realised it was not going to be good news. I looked at John and his eyes filled up.

“I don’t know exactly what the consultant said but it registered that I had breast cancer and they had to operate to remove a tumour on my right breast.

“The worst thing was going home and having to tell all my family and friends.

“My mum had died when I was just 19 of pancreatic cancer but she had also had breast cancer earlier.

“The thought of leaving Jai, John and my 13-year-old stepdaughter Brodie was unimaginable.”

Within a few days of the diagnosis, she had the operation to remove the tumour but then got more bad news in that the cancer was of a more aggressive form than first thought.

It meant another operation that week in which eight lymph nodes were removed.

She said: “The good news is that I have not needed chemotherapy so far and the cancer has not spread.”

Shenagh is having a fundraising event for Breast Cancer Care on October 30 and is grateful to the businesses who have offered raffle prizes. Anyone who wants to make any donations or give prizes can contact her via the Standard.