Most of us know what it’s like to have a niggling pain or ache that won’t go away but doesn’t seem a big enough issue for medical treatment.
This was how Mary Golden’s story started. In March 2022, she was on the mend from a debilitating bout of Covid-19 and mentioned in passing to a friend that she had a pain in her chest. Despite her protestations, her friend insisted she seek medical advice and it wasn’t long before she was having an X-ray at the A&E department of the Mater hospital in Dublin.
Nothing untoward was detected, so she was given anti-inflammatories and discharged.
Understandably, she thought that was the end of the matter. However, about three weeks later, she began to experience “stabbing pains” in her chest and once again went to the accident and emergency department where she underwent a series of tests, including blood and a CT scan after which she was discharged and told the hospital would soon be in touch with results.
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She was expecting to have a long wait, but the following day got a call to come back in.
She was told it was highly likely she had breast cancer.
She was referred for further tests and after a triple assessment — mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy — in April 2022 she received the devastating news she had stage 3 Triple Negative Breast Cancer and treatment would need to begin straight away. “I didn’t have any symptoms when I was diagnosed, so I found it hard to believe at first,” she says. “I went into shock as they talked about what was going to happen. It didn’t seem like real life to me, but, thankfully, the hospital had a full plan and knew exactly what treatment they were going to give me and how long I’d be doing it for.
“When I went in for my original CT scan, it [the tumour] was 3.5cm and, three weeks later, when I had the triple assessment, it had grown by another 2.5cm. By the time I started treatment, it was up to 10cm. Of course, I was worried it was growing so quickly and was really rock hard; also, it’s very difficult when things are out of your control and your life changes overnight, but there was a bit of comfort in knowing they [the medical team] had everything planned.”
The now-33-year-old had become engaged to her husband Glenn Lynch the January before her diagnosis, so had been planning a wedding and a move to be close to her family. After receiving the life-changing news, she was advised to undergo fertility preservation treatment, so, on top of the plan to eradicate the cancer from her body, she also had to undergo hormonal treatment and egg harvesting, which was an ordeal in itself.
Having never been ill before, apart from the “odd sinus infection”, she suddenly found herself in a “wild west” of scans, appointments and treatments as she began intravenous (IV) chemotherapy at the Mater hospital in May, 2022. This finished in October of the same year and, a month later, was followed by surgery which involved a single mastectomy with auxiliary node clearance. Once recovered from the operation, she began 21 sessions of radiotherapy in March 2023.
She was determined to try and remain positive and keep living her life to the full. “I found the first chemo combo quite easy and we even adopted a dog midway through it because we were going to get one when we moved to Mayo, so we just did it sooner. I didn’t have any complications with surgery and recovered well before going on to have radiotherapy, which again, I didn’t find too severe. But I did have extreme fatigue just when I was starting to feel a bit more like myself again.”
Despite the tiredness, the qualified solicitor, who is not working at present, recovered well and, while still undergoing radiotherapy, was beginning to feel better, when suddenly she began to experience a recurrence of chest pain. Naturally terrified that this could mean bad news, she underwent further tests which revealed secondary cancer in the soft tissue outside the thymus gland.
“That was horrific,” she says. “Hearing that news was the worst moment of my life. My husband, Glenn, was with me and we were all very emotional. It had never crossed my mind that I wouldn’t get better and move on with my life and all of a sudden everything was shattered. I was told that I was at stage four, so there were two types of treatment options open to me — I could start on an oral chemotherapy almost immediately, or I could wait for four weeks for test results to come back and do a combination of immunotherapy and IV chemotherapy together.
“The oncologist was more keen on the oral chemotherapy as it meant they could try and see if it would work and then have the next option lined up. His main concern was that the cancer may have been more resistant because it developed even after getting strong IV chemotherapy. But because of my age, they said they were going to throw the kitchen sink at me and give me the strongest medication possible to try and knock it out. They said that the fact that it had managed to grow and spread as a secondary cancer was more negative than initially diagnosed so they went on to do the tests to see if I could start the oral treatment straight away.”
Despite being diagnosed in September 2023 with incurable stage four cancer, Mary and Glenn decided to make plans for their wedding.
She also made plans for her funeral.
“It was one of the worst moments of my life,” she says. “But, thankfully, the meds started to work and I also started going to counselling which I found really helpful. I suppose when you get a secondary cancer diagnosis, it makes you think that you’re going to die so I started to plan my funeral as I felt my time was coming up.
“But it also taught me to live and I started an Instagram page (@thegoodthebadandthecancer) to raise awareness of what it is like and also to remind people that you can get breast cancer at my age, even when you seem healthy. I remember being so surprised when I was diagnosed as I didn’t think that it affected people of my age, but now that I’ve been living with it for two and a half years, I know that it can affect anyone, whether they are my age or younger and it’s something everyone should be vigilant about.
“I wanted to show that there is life after being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. We got married on April 26th this year and my consultant gave me time off from chemotherapy so I could have a hen do and enjoy the wedding. It’s important to keep living your life.”
The newly married woman says staff at the Mater hospital went over and above to help her deal with the diagnosis and subsequent treatment and cope with the reality of living with a “horrible disease”. And she would encourage anyone else who has recently been diagnosed with cancer to avail of any support offered and try to be as positive as possible.
“There is a huge amount of support out there for people. So I would encourage them to find their community, whether it’s online or in real life as it is so beneficial. Also, I would say to them to enjoy all the things that they love doing and prioritise those because they won’t have the energy to do everything.
“My diagnosis is incurable cancer, so I won’t be ‘cured’ and will be on treatment for life, which is of course, very scary. But instead of thinking about the negative and worrying about the future, I would rather live as much of my life as possible while I’m still here and I would encourage others to do the same.”
Facts
- One in seven women will develop cancer in their lifetime in Ireland.
- Breast cancer is the most common cancer amongst women in Ireland (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer) with the latest figures from the National Cancer Registry Ireland showing that 3,400 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year.
- Each year in Ireland, about 30 men are diagnosed with breast cancer.
- For more information visit materfoundation.ie, cancer.ie, mariekeating.ie, breastcancerireland.com, breastcancerresearch.ie
