'I was worried I wouldn't live to see them grow up'

There are two common misconceptions about breast cancer. One is that it only expresses itself as a lump. The other is that it is a problem that has been solved.

This is not the case for Jacqui Ryan who instead of finding a lump found herself with a "very very painful" left breast.

"It felt like mastitis but I wasn't breastfeeding," she tells 9Honey. "A left it for a bit but I knew the pain wasn't right."

The mother-of-two had always had regular breast checks but went back to the doctor for further investigation.

That's when the breast cancer was found.

Jacqui was diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), cancer of the cells that line the milk ducts.

Her mother had died of breast cancer so Jacqui opted to have her left breast removed with an immediate reconstruction.

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"It was frightening," she tells 9Honey. At the time Jacqui was 45 and her twins were only two.

"I was worried I wouldn't live to see them grow up."

Jacqui and her husband Claude thought that was the end of it. She'd been diagnosed with breast cancer, successfully treated and life moved on.

It was two-and-a-half years after that when her children were nearly five that she felt a "tiny tiny pain" in her right breast.

More DCIS was found and she underwent another mastectomy and reconstruction.

"Because it was the same sort of cancer that was early and non-invasive they thought nothing more would happen," she says. "I would worry every year at every check up but I did feel it was over."

Every test was clear and in 2017 Jacqui was told she was "all clear" of breast cancer.

Soon after she felt pain in her chest and torso, as well as a sharp pain in her groin and lower pelvis "enough to make me gasp".

Jacqui was diagnosed with cancer for a third time in 2018 but this time it has metastasised to her bones, from her skull to her femur, breast and lymph nodes.

"The cancer was in my bones and the ache in my pelvis was a fractured pelvis," she says.

Jacqui admits she is finding her third cancer diagnosis "hard" although she takes comfort in new treatments she has access to that are helping to extend her life.

"Cancer changes everything, your whole world changes," she says. "I had to undergo IVF to have children and then cancer and it's made me appreciate that I am lucky in a lot of ways."

Now 66, Jacquie and her husband Claude, 63, "grab every opportunity" to make memories with their family.

"We took the kids to Vietnam when I was well enough to travel and ride a bike," she says. As soon as international borders open, they plan to travel to the UK and Europe.

"Treatments are giving me some additional years and I'm feeling very fortunate," she says. "Not to say things won't go bad again, but this year my life is as good as it can be."

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Find out more at the National Breast Cancer Foundation website.