The exact moment Paula McClean found the lump in her breast while getting ready for a family wedding is one that remains marked clearly in her mind almost five years later.
“I was like everybody else thinking naively it can’t happen to me. I didn’t think for a second it was breast cancer, I thought I was too young at 41,” she says. “I was coming out the other side of having three babies. I was happy out and enjoying life.”
McClean says she was attentively putting on false tan the day before going to a wedding in 2011 at which her three young daughters, who were aged two, four and six at the time, were flower girls.
“I remember thinking I didn’t want any streaks because I was wearing an off-the- shoulder dress. Then I found a lump in my left breast. I didn’t do anything for a couple of weeks; I thought it would go away,” she says.
Three weeks later on a Sunday evening, McClean picked up a newspaper to read an article about a woman whose sister had died from cancer quite young.
“I thought I had better go and get it checked out. I went to the appointment on my own because I still didn’t think it was breast cancer as there was none in our family, and I felt healthy and fit,” she says.
“I was wrong unfortunately but fortunately I found it early,” she says.
“I was devastated when I was told. It was terrible. That whole month was horrendous. I didn’t know how I was going to get through it but you do. Everyone is stronger than they think,” she says.
After a mastectomy and chemotherapy treatment, McClean started to take one tablet of Tamoxifen around the same time every day. “It’s not a particularly easy drug to take. I’ve made a huge amount of friends the past few years and a lot haven’t found it easy to take,” she says.
“I’ve been lucky that while I’ve had a lot of side effects, like severe bone pain which I’ve never had before, it’s manageable.”
Easier over time
McClean says her first year on the drug was the most difficult but it became a “bit easier” over time. “I’ve met people whose cancer has come back and that’s the reality of it. Tamoxifen is my safety blanket,” she says.
“I remember Kylie Minogue talking about her Tamoxifen and how she took it religiously no matter what the side effects were. But I do understand some people find it very, very difficult. Everyone reacts differently.”
McClean says in general she does not live her life worrying about cancer returning but sometimes she is reminded of the fear.
“I went in for my mammogram and ultrasound last week and they took a bit longer than usual. My heart for those 20 minutes; that overwhelming fear of going through it again. It is an absolute fear. But everything was fine,” she says.
McClean will be taking Tamoxifen five years this summer, the length of time she was originally told she would need to take the drug. “I’ve recently been told I might be on it for 10 years. There have been times I’ve struggled to take it but I’ll stay on it for as long as I’m told to by the medical team,” she says. “It gives me peace of mind being on it.”
