Chapter two: secondary breast cancer

A new decade, a new diagnosis...

Earlier this month, exactly 10 years after my breast cancer diagnosis, I found out the cancer has spread to my bones. It is now stage four breast cancer, which means it will never be cured, but it can be treated, and I’m fortunate enough to be under the care of one of the best cancer hospitals in the world, The Royal Marsden.

I still have a future, but the shape of that future is different from what I had hoped. Still, I’m as positive as ever and I’m buoyed by the stories of women who have lived for 10+ years with similar diagnoses and are still going strong.

It’s all very déjà vu right now. I was diagnosed with primary breast cancer in the hot summer of 2012, right before my 30th birthday; I started chemo just days after turning 30. Now I’ve been diagnosed with secondary breast cancer in the middle of the 2022 heatwave, right before my 40th birthday. I turn 40 next week, and I’ll be starting my treatment a few days later. Life is a lot about sitting in hospital waiting rooms with the sunshine blazing in through the window.

Find a guy who brings you Bread Ahead custard doughnuts when you’re recovering from a biopsy…

I have been experiencing pain in my breasts and chest for about nine months. Since October, my breasts have been sore and achy and my sternum bone has felt tender to the touch, as if bruised. Sometimes a hug makes me wince in pain; other days the pain is much milder. Occasionally, it has hurt to breathe in, and it also hurts to sneeze and to swim, but the type and severity of the pain changes regularly.

My immediate concern was that I could have secondary breast cancer, but I was told it was likely to be costochondritis, an inflammation of the cartilage that joins your ribs to your breastbone, with similar symptoms to mine. After a series of follow-ups, I was eventually given the right kind of scan that would discover a 7cm tumour in my sternum.

I am starting three types of drugs called Zoladex, Letrozole and Ribociclib. I’ll be on these drugs for three or four months before having a follow-up PET-CT scan to see whether the tumour has shrunk and whether there are signs of cancer elsewhere in my body. After that, my oncologist will decide whether I might have radiotherapy or surgery. (I won’t be having chemo this time).

People with secondary breast cancer can live for years and sometimes decades. My brilliant medical team believe that my cancer is isolated to my sternum and that it is highly treatable. This doesn’t mean that I will be cured; rather that the cancer could be got rid of for a period, before it eventually comes back. There’s no reason to believe I won’t live a long-ish life, but needless to say I’ll be crossing ‘sort pension’ off my to do list.

I took this selfie on the day I was diagnosed, the blazing hot sun scorching the grass while my cat was busy catching butterflies in the garden. Usually I use a filter to hide my blemishes, but that day I took it off. I wanted to see myself as I really am. I knew suddenly that things like spots and shiny skin don’t matter to anyone.

In the days following my diagnosis, I experienced the most profound grief. I saw the world through entirely different eyes. I looked back over my life and found very little I wish I’d done differently; very little that I wish I’d done. Over the last 10 years since my primary breast cancer diagnosis, I’ve done all the things many people put off until the end of their lives – I quit my job to follow my dream career as a food journalist and writer, I had my first novel published, I visited all the countries I wanted to visit. I swam in lakes and oceans and I ended relationships that weren’t doing me any good. There’s very little I regret doing, or not doing.

I cried a lot in the first few days, but by day four I was dancing around the kitchen with my partner Mark to Niall Horan and Anne-Marie’s version of Everywhere. I don’t believe we have the capacity to be sad all the time. There are always moments of sheer joy, and in that first week we both experienced indescribable joy and love alongside the heart-crushing sadness. I wish you could all experience life and love the way we did that week, yet without the knowledge that one of you will die sooner than you’d hoped.

I plan to write more books, take holidays, spend time with family and friends and eat in wonderful restaurants. I also plan to write about my treatment, and my feelings and reflections throughout that treatment, because there’s a lack of understanding about secondary/incurable/stage four cancer and I know I have a role in educating and helping people.

I’ve spent the last decade pushing for the life I want to lead now, instead of leaving it for some distant day that might never come, and I want to inspire you to do the same. After all, it needn’t take a life-threatening disease to make life-changing decisions.

We cry and we grieve because we love so deeply; we feel so deeply. I hope you will allow yourself to feel this news as deeply as you are capable, to give yourself space to think about what it means and what your own life means to you.

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Single Bald Female

In case you’re new to this newsletter, I wrote a novel called Single Bald Female, which touches on breast cancer in an accessible way. I wrote it long before my secondary diagnosis, when I was hopeful that my cancer had been cured for good, so it tackles the subject from a hopeful and uplifting angle.

It’s a book not just about one woman’s experience of cancer, but also about love, friendship, family, grief, food and an exciting career in magazine journalism. I’m so proud of this book, and so glad I wrote it when I did. You can support your local bookshop by ordering it from Bookshop.org.

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How you can help

None of these things will cure my cancer, but they will make me happy, and – crucially – help me to make money and support myself as an independent author with an incurable illness.

1. Share this post and/or leave a comment. I would like it to be as far-reaching as possible, as I have a lot of important stuff to say.

2. Buy my book, Single Bald Female. If you’ve already read it, is there a friend who might like it? The paperback is now pre-orderable for January 2023.

3. Give my book a nice review or rating on Amazon or Waterstones (regardless of where you bought it). The all-powerful algorithms will determine what bookshops stock my paperback, and the more reviews, the better it will do.

4. Listen to my podcast, Life in Food with Laura Price. My episode with Kris Hallenga on Food and Cancer will give you a brilliant insight into living with secondary breast cancer from someone who has survived and thrived for 14 years. It’s available on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.

5. Subscribe to this newsletter. Scroll to the end to choose which parts to subscribe to.

6. Stay in touch and be curious. I would rather you ask me questions directly than Google things on my behalf. I plan to be open about my illness because that way I can help others, like I did with my earlier blog, The Big Scary ‘C’ Word.

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How not to help

There’s a chapter in my novel entitled ‘Shit people say when you have cancer’ because, understandably, many people have no idea what to say when a loved one is diagnosed. This list is meant not unkindly, but to genuinely try to provide pointers.

1. Please don’t tell me to ‘get well soon’. Firstly, I am not unwell right now – I feel fine, bar a few pains and drug side effects. But, crucially, I am not going to get better, as secondary breast cancer is incurable. Useful things to say include: ‘I am so sorry,’ ‘I have just ordered your book’ and ‘I loved your latest podcast episode, can you please hurry up with the next season?’

2. Please don’t use emojis without accompanying words. I don’t mind emojis per se, but a crying face with no words is meaningless and insensitive.

3. Please don’t ask if I’ve tried turmeric, apricot kernels or mindfulness. These things don’t cure cancer. I lead a healthy lifestyle with very little alcohol, a lot of exercise and a great diet. I will look into mushrooms and acupuncture in my own time, but in the meantime I’m leaving the treatment to my oncology team.

4. Please don’t Google my life expectancy. That won’t help anyone. Instead, read this newsletter, buy Single Bald Female or read Kris Hallenga’s memoir Glittering a Turd. Allow me to educate you about what it means to live with cancer, instead of speculating over when I might die.

‘Celebrating’ the 10-year anniversary of my primary diagnosis at Asador Etxebarri while ignoring the dread of imminent rediagnosis

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Changes to this newsletter

There are now two strands to this newsletter, and you can subscribe to either or both.  

1. Doughnuts for Breakfast. Here you’ll find careers and life advice on topics like rejection, resilience and writing a novel, as well as book recommendations and musings on love, friendship and food. These posts will inspire you to pursue the things that bring you joy, and will be published once a month.

2. Chapter Two. Here you’ll find memoir-style pieces and updates on my health as I learn to live with stage four breast cancer. Chapter Two is the follow-up to The Big Scary ‘C’ Word and my blog for The Huffington Post, both of which began in 2012. These posts will be honest, realistic and positive, as I aim to educate you on the realities of cancer, and how it is possible to live a full and happy life with an incurable illness. You can expect posts about once a month.

To subscribe to Doughnuts for Breakfast, Chapter Two, or both, click here and scroll to the end of the page.

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That’s it for now. I’m off to enjoy my 40th birthday in Portugal before I kick off the next decade – and the next chapter – of my weird and wonderful life.