Hello, I have no idea if anyone comes here anymore, especially when I don’t frequent Twitter anymore to direct people here. But since I haven’t posted since February and an awful lot has happened, I thought it was about time. I’ve actually been thinking about doing this for a while, and true to form, here we are in the last couple of weeks of the year, slowing down and catching up.

So the last couple of times I posted, I had been diagnosed with breast cancer and I was about to have a lumpectomy. It turned out to be grade three, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), and the tumour was 15mm, with no lymph node involvement. So I had the lumpectomy on 4th March and all went smoothly, and they got it all. However, because it was TNBC, which is a more aggressive form (duff you up outside the pub on a Saturday night kinda cancer), chemo was recommended.

Even though I’ve had cancer three times already, I’ve never had chemo before. So it was quite a learning curve when we started it towards the end of April, for four months until August. Some people have mild side effects and are able to work. I was not one of those people, but I also didn’t feel nauseous and didn’t have any in-patient stays or anything like that. So I was lucky in some ways, but it was still pretty awful and I spent four months not doing very much besides sitting on the couch watching TV and going to hospital appointments. I could go into lots of detail here about how I had a picc line, and lost all my hair, and so on, but I’m trying to be relatively brief.

After chemo, there was the question of whether we would do radiotherapy. I was unsure because we had found out that my breast cancer was likely caused by my CMMRD. So I wondered if my consultants would recommend a double mastectomy as a preventative measure, and I also wondered if radiotherapy would increase my risk of getting cancer again in the future. But further surgery wasn’t recommended – partly because of the lack of data around CMMRD and breast cancer, and partly because other data shows that radiotherapy is equally effective. And I was reassured by my medical team that the risk of more cancer from radiotherapy was tiny, and not an increased issue for me with my genetic condition. So I trusted them and we did ten sessions of radiotherapy at the end of September/beginning of October. Although I’m feeling some late effects of stiffness and pain from that now, I maintain it was a hell of a lot easier than chemo was.

I started back at work before radiotherapy started, just part-time at first. I also ramped up my PhD work again, which had taken a huge hit over the summer. Now we’re looking at handing in my thesis around June, with my viva over the summer. I must admit I’m disappointed that the timeline has been pushed back. But I’ve still done pretty well under the circumstances.

I’ve also had a lot of anxiety recently about feeling pain in my unaffected breast, but I had an appointment with a consultant today who checked me out and said everything looks fine, and there are no concerns. So I’ll be having my first mammogram in January, a year after my diagnosis. Add mammograms to my already long list of surveillance for CMMRD, which hasn’t taken a break – I had my gastroscopy, flexi sig and capsule endoscopy in April before chemo started, and had my brain and full body MRI a little before that, followed by another six-monthly brain MRI in September. I had a benign cyst on my back checked out, too. So physically, at least, I’m doing okay. And although I’ve been anxious for the last couple of weeks, now that I have been reassured about my various aches and pains, I’m feeling more positive and looking forward to Christmas.

So that’s been my 2025, topped off by a recent expensive car repair bill, which hasn’t helped things. But things are looking up, even if that’s just the immediate relief of today’s exam talking. I really hope things are looking up, anyway. I’d very much like to go on the holiday we had to rearrange from this year to next year. Saying that, we did manage to get a couple of weekend breaks in, and some great meals. I had some absolute feasts and treats once chemo ended and my mouth stopped feeling sore. And I have a good support network around me. So plenty to be happy about, even if anxiety and sadness sometimes sits at the table too. Merry Christmas.