Profile: Sharon, breast cancer survivor

“I never knew what it was to lie awake all night until then, and they were the longest darkest nights of my life. Mam came to stay with us while I was waiting for scans to see if my cancer had spread. One night I went into her and she just cradled me, her 42-year-old child, in her arms while I cried and asked her if I was going to die.”

Sharon Power was on holiday with her family in May 2018, enjoying a break from her work as a Garda while coming to terms with her dad’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. A mum of two boys, aged 8 and 11 and married to Aidan, the last thing Sharon, a marathon runner, expected was her own health trouble.

“I will never forget the moment I felt a lump,” she said, recalling the discovery while in the shower. “In my gut I just knew it was something bad.”

Back home in Castleknock, Sharon kept an eye on the lump over the course of a month, hoping it would go away. She went to her GP with a sore throat, and as an aside mentioned the lump and asked if her GP would check it. “I was nearly embarrassed to do it. I went to the doctor with a sore throat, and not because of the lump. I thought I was too young for breast cancer.”

Sharon was quickly referred to the Hermitage by her GP, and as a private patient was seen a few days later for the triple assessment. “I went alone that day. And during the assessment I just knew by their faces it was going to be bad news. I went into shock when they were doing the ultrasound. I was frozen and crying, they had to get me a blanket.”

Sharon and her family had a cruise booked, which she went on while waiting her results. A call came while she was in Venice saying that she needed to go in to hospital to receive her results. On July 12 she sat before her consultant as he told her he had found cancer cells.

“I felt like the rug was pulled out from under me. I went into a blind panic. I kept saying to my husband, ‘tell him to stop telling me I have cancer’. I don’t know what the rest of the conversation was in that office that day. It was the worst day of my life.”

But there was more waiting to find out if the cancer had spread to her bones or other organs. Nights Sharon spent lying awake fearing for her life. It was a Friday night at 8pm when Sharon got a call to say that her cancer hadn’t spread. “It was like winning the health lottery”, she said. The following Monday she went to hospital to find out what her treatment plan was to be.

“They told me I need a mastectomy on Wednesday. Followed by chemo and radiotherapy. I couldn’t believe what was happening. That Wednesday, wearing my gown, I had to fill in a consent form to allow them to remove my boob. I was crying and shaking so much I didn’t recognise my own signature.”

When her pathology results came back she found out her cancer was Triple Negative and was in her lymph nodes. Sharon turned to ‘Dr Google’ which she admits wasn’t helpful. “I started to get really angry about my diagnosis. The outlook wasn’t very positive, and I found out there was no targeted treatment for my form of cancer so I was thinking, ‘why me?’ and wishing I had a different type.”

Sharon found comfort in the Society’s Daffodil Centre in the Hermitage. “I went in, and the Nurse Mary closed the door and sat me down, and gave me all the time in the world. She really helped to calm me down.”

Sharon was told about the Society’s Survivor Support service, which put her in touch with a woman who had been through the same type of cancer.

“I remember sitting on my bed one day and getting a call from her. She told me she had the same type of cancer I had, and that she was doing fine. It really helped me to hear she got through it. For her it was a distant memory, and it was good to realise that in time I might move on from the nightmare.”

Face of cancer

Losing her long blonde hair was difficult for Sharon. “When I started chemo I became the face of cancer. I was bald, I was vomiting, I couldn’t eat. That was overwhelming. One minute I had been a busy working mother, next I was in a chemo ward. It was so hard to comprehend.”

The first time she had her chemo Sharon was very upset, but as time went on she built up a bond with the other women on the ward and they would share their experiences and have a laugh together. At Christmas her sister arrived to the ward with chocolates, flowers and Christmas crackers to keep their spirits high.

Sharon‘s entire family rallied round her in a staunch show of support. “Thank god for my family and close friends, I couldn’t have done it without them. And they kept things as normal as possible for the boys. I didn’t tell the boys directly. I found it too emotional to say it out loud to them that I had cancer. I read them a book called Mummy’s Lump and told them why I had lost my hair. Children are so resilient, once they could see I was OK and doing normal things at home they were fine. Sometimes you just don’t have the words, so use the literature that’s available to you.”

In the midst of her cancer, Sharon was interviewed for a promotion at work and was successful. At the moment she is still taking time out from work.

“Mentally it can take two years to get over cancer. I’m using this time to step back, regroup, look after my mental health and family, and enjoy the simple things in life. I realised that the feelings I had, and still have, are normal feelings in an extraordinary situation. I read a lot of the Irish Cancer Society’s information booklets and they helped me to realise that.

“The fear of reoccurrence is real and debilitating, but I am trying to focus on now. Some people have been robbed of their life by cancer, so I’m incredibly grateful and lucky to be here. I read a quote that said, ‘your second life begins when you realise you only have one’ and it’s so true. Cancer has given me the gift of feeling extraordinarily grateful for life.”