The Ultimate Story of Sisterhood Through Dual Cancer Diagnoses
- Five years ago, sisters Tracey Pinfold, 50, and Cathy Corr, 47, were both diagnosed with stage two breast cancer within six weeks of each other.
- The women lost both of their parents to cancer and took the news particularly hard, especially Tracey, who feared losing her younger sister and being left the survivor.
- Luckily, both ladies beat the disease, and our bonded more than ever after fighting together. Early stage breast cancer is extremely common todayand as much as this is a hard diagnosis to digest, there is good news to consider as well. There is so much science and research focused on breast cancer that every year new treatments and drugs become available.
Five years later and bonded more than ever, the women are starting a charity to help other families going through cancer. They also have been raising money by running and have ran nine Race For Life 10k runs through England where they are from: Tracey from Yorkshire, and Cathy from Berkshire.
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Tracey and Cathy’s Breast Cancer Journey
Tracey’s only symptom was discovering an inverted looking nipple, a common symptom of breast cancer. Luckily, the mother and wife immediately went to a breast clinic and saw a doctor.
“She told me she was 99.9 per cent confident I had cancer, I went to the disabled toilets and I couldn’t breathe and was hyperventilating,” she recalled of her traumatic diagnosis. The doctor was right, it was stage two.
Tracey immediately had a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery prior to six weeks of chemotherapy treatment. By that time, Cathy had found a lump in her own breast.
When Should You Consider a Mastectomy?
“I burst into tears when she told me,” Tracey said. “We didn’t know it was stage two at that point and my fear was that she was going to die because that would ruin me.”
Once Cathy received her own official diagnosis, the pair united to beat the disease as one. “We went to some of each other’s appointments together and we would compare symptoms or treatment and that made such a difference,” Tracey said. “But we were a great strength to each other and we could help each other.”
Cathy had the reverse order of treatment and underwent six weeks of chemo followed by a mastectomy and breast reconstruction.
“We are so lucky to have such a good support network though and the whole family did everything they could to support us,” she added. The women are also very lucky to both have experienced symptoms. Many women do not find a lump or they chalk up strange symptoms with their breasts to their menstrual cycles and/or hormones.
An Introduction to Breast Cancer Symptoms & Diagnosis
Early stage breast cancer is extremely common todayand as much as this is a hard diagnosis to digest, there is good news to consider as well. There is so much science and research focused on breast cancer that every year new treatments and drugs become available.
This website will give you the information you need, backed up with science and information from leading doctors in the field. It is prepared and presented with you, the patient, in mindand it has been developed not only by doctors, but by women who have experienced receiving a diagnosis and many of the treatments presented.
There are many other hopeful stories out there like Tracey and Cathy’s to use as an inspiration to get through your own battle and make some of those darker days a whole lot brighter.
Contributing by SurvivorNet staff.
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