Katie Kennedy from Arklow will never forget the date of February 5, 2021, the day she was diagnosed with Her2+ invasive ductal carcinoma breast cancer. The then 38-year-old didn’t have a lump in her breast, but she had noticed that her right breast had gotten bigger. “This wasn’t normal for me, and if I moved my right arm, it was hitting off it. I thought, ‘I don’t really like that’,” says Katie. “Then I remembered Victoria Derbyshire, [the BBC journalist], and she had been talking about her breast cancer diagnosis and that she hadn’t had a lump.” 

Katie made an appointment to see a doctor and was then referred for a triple assessment. I didn’t want to tell anyone I was going for it but my sister, it was like she was psychic and she just knew,” Katie recalls. She had a mammogram, an ultrasound and a biopsy, and several days later went back to get the results, accompanied by her sister. 

“The consultant said yes, it’s a cancerous growth; it’s called invasive ductal carcinoma and it’s HER2+, which is the growth factor. My sister crumpled into pieces beside me on the chair, but I was ok because I had kind of known that there was something there. They sent me for blood tests and made an appointment for a CT scan, and that was the worst time, waiting for those results,” says Katie. 

Her treatment plan involved chemotherapy, followed by surgery and radiation, and she would be put on Herceptin for a year. “When I heard the word ‘oncologist’, it was such a shock. Especially as I had never even had an overnight stay in hospital up until that point,” she says.  She also blamed herself for her diagnosis. “A doctor made a throwaway remark about being overweight, so I blamed myself. Obviously, I’ve since learned that’s not the case.” 

Katie was scheduled to have six rounds of chemotherapy but in the end, she only had four rounds. “I had a really bad time with chemo, to be honest,” she says. “After the first chemo, I go neutropenic sepsis and ended up in hospital for five days. It was in three week cycles, and the second chemo wasn’t so bad but it wasn’t nice. I had the third round and after the fourth round, I got C.diff [a bacterium that causes diarrhoea and inflammation of the colon]. The oncologist stopped the chemo after that. She said that I was meant to have six; I’d had four and two of them saw me end up in hospital, so I got two more, chances were I’d end up in hospital again.”

Her surgery was delayed after she contracted C.diff again but when she had the lumpectomy with a sentinel node biopsy, the surgery was a success, with no cancer detected in her lymph nodes. Following that, Katie had radiotherapy Monday to Friday, for five weeks, and she received Herceptin at her hospital every three weeks for a year. 

“It’s mad, it’s the things you don’t think about,” she says. “After my first chemo, I had to get a port in. I thought I was going to rock into the chemo ward and my veins were going to be fine, and I was terrified getting a port in. But it ended up being the best thing.”

Her sister was a tremendous support, as was Katie’s partner Mark. Katie used the Irish Cancer Society’s Peer Support Programme after she was diagnosed. “I suffered really badly with anxiety, and it was horrific,” she says “I’d be lying in bed at night, imagining what it was going to be like in a coffin. I got in touch with the Irish Cancer Society, and Peer Support helped me very much, and obviously all the information that’s on the website.”

She has been affected by hospital car parking charges, when she received radiotherapy and during the year she was receiving Herceptin; she was too unwell to drive while receiving chemotherapy. 

Katie is now cancer free and she would love to raise awareness surrounding breast cancer. Her advice to anyone facing a similar diagnosis is to reach out. “The support is really important, whether that’s the Irish Cancer Society or local cancer support groups, because they were also fantastic. I can’t tell someone not to worry, because they will worry, but definitely the support is very important.” 

She also adds: “I think it's really important to support Daffodil Day so the Irish Cancer Society can continue the great work they do by providing vital services and information to cancer patients and their families, as well as raising the public's awareness around cancer and supporting cancer research.”