'CANCER WON'T RUIN MY WEDDING'

Just weeks before her big day, Charlotte Nash-Pye, 36, found a lump in her breast

- LUCY LAING

Relaxing by the pool, I stretched out as I felt the warm sun on my face. It was June 2022 and my family and I had travelled to Cyprus for my second cousin’s wedding. Excitement brewed in me knowing that my own wedding to my fiancé Jack, then 32, was only six weeks away.

He was back home in Surrey looking after our rescue dogs and I couldn’t wait to marry him. We’d been together for 10 years, patiently saving up as much as we could for a wedding and, finally, it was nearly our turn to say, ‘I do.’

For now though, I was happy topping up my tan. As I felt the sun intensify, I sat up to apply sun lotion, only as I rubbed my hands around my bikini top, my fingers brushed against something unexpected – a hard lump on the side of my right breast.

Pressing down on it, I felt a sharp twinge of pain. ‘That’s not normal,’ I thought. I immediately went to get my mum’s opinion and, concerned, she told me I should get it checked out. I promised I’d make an appointment with the GP as soon as we were home.

The next day, I pushed my anxiety aside to enjoy my cousin’s wedding and once back in the UK a few days later, I went to see my GP, without telling Jack as I didn’t want to worry him. But after the GP referred me to the breast clinic at The Royal Marsden hospital, I felt I had to let Jack know. Later that day, he held me as I told him how worried I was and showed him the lump.