My breast cancer journey
The call that changed everything
In 2021, at age 49, my life took an unexpected turn. It started with a phone call from my mother. She had just gone for her routine mammogram and was diagnosed with aggressive Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS).
DCIS is an early, non-invasive form of breast cancer where cells are confined to the milk ducts. Some downplay it because it hasn’t spread into the tissue yet, but the reality is simpler: until it leaves the duct, chemotherapy won’t touch it. It has to be cut out. With no family history of the disease, we thought Mum’s diagnosis was just a fluke.
After her surgery, which involved a blue dye that left her looking like a Smurf for weeks, Mum became a “dog with a bone.” She nagged me constantly to get checked. I brushed her off; I wasn’t 50 yet, and I thought I was safe. To put us both out of our misery, I finally booked an appointment with Breast Screen NSW.
The “game show” callback
When the letter arrived asking me to return for more tests, I wasn’t worried as they’d warned me that first-timers often get called back for lack of comparison. But when I called to ask why I needed to block out a half-day, the voice on the other end was quiet: “We’ve found something in your right breast.”
On testing day, I used my best defense mechanism: humour. I walked into a room full of women in those awkward front-tie hospital gowns and cracked, “Who wears it best?”
It felt like a twisted game show. We all did the mammogram round; the “winners” went home, and the rest of us moved to the ultrasound round. Finally, only three of us were left for the “Grand Prize” biopsy. A week later, I was told I had low-grade DCIS.
The lockdown nightmare
What followed was a marathon of “not quite enough.” First lumpectomy? They didn’t get enough cancer. Second surgery? They didn’t get enough clear margins. She suggested I might like to remove the breast completely. I thought, “hang on a minute, this is supposed to be low grade early breast cancer so why am I removing a part of me”. That’s when the radiation oncologist stepped in and said that is what radiation is for…to kill any cells left over. So they racked me up for 30 radiation treatments.
Here I was, a single mum working full-time and homeschooling my daughter during a COVID lockdown. My life became a covert operation: I’d drive past the hospital to drop my daughter at my parents’ (technically breaking lockdown rules), race back to the hospital, strip down while running down the radiation corridor, get “zapped,” and rush back to collect my daughter to drive past the hospital again to get home and finish my workday and homeschooling.
The “Friday night special”
I stayed clear for three years—until 2024. We’d recently moved to regional NSW so I was attending a new place for my mammogram and ultrasound. I took all my scans with me so they could see what had been there previously. After my mammogram, they took the most recent scans to the doctor to compare. They came back and grabbed the rest, saying “I’ll just take the rest in as well”. I thought something was up. But when they came back and said “We’re just going to do a few zoomed in scans” I knew something wasn’t right.
My breast specialist called me that Friday night (we like to joke it is his Friday night specials!). He said there was some calcifications coming up in the same breast, very close to where the previous cancer was and he wanted me to have a biopsy the following week. Following the biopsy, I got a call the following Friday night (I told you they were special!) and for him to say the words I had been dreading – that I have DCIS again. This time, there was no alternative: I needed a single mastectomy.
The bravado slipped. For the first time, I wasn’t making jokes; I was making plans for my daughter in case I didn’t make it. I was also thinking that I would likely be out of action for a while so what do you do while you wait for your surgery date…
…you start painting the exterior of the house!
Becoming “Mono Michelle”
Recovery was a lesson in humility. I remember sitting in my hospital bed, hair matted in a “tangled knob,” unable to lift my arms to wash or brush it. I cried over the simple things we take for granted. In a moment of pure grace, the woman in the bed opposite me—a hairdresser—offered her dry shampoo and brushed my hair for me.
Today, I call myself “Mono Michelle.” Because of radiation damage and scarring, I can’t have reconstruction. I feel “wonky” some days, and I still struggle to look at the scar for more than a squinted second.
But I’ve learned that while doctors and nurses give you medical advice, only a friend who has walked this path can give you the raw and honest truth. That is why I started this podcast. I want to pay forward the honesty I received and create a space where we can share the raw, “un-medical” reality of this journey.
