Cancer Gave Me twins!

Doctors warned breast cancer might leave Lejla infertile… Lejla Ibrisbegovic, 32, Munich, Germany

- Kim Willis

Grabbing hold of the wall, I powered my way to the top. Looking down, my climbing partner beamed at me. ‘Nice work!’ Chris shouted. I gave him a thumbs-up before jumping back down.

Bouldering – a type of rock climbing – was my new hobby. Something to take my mind off my divorce… And my cancer.

Six months earlier, in November 2012, I’d found a lump in my right breast.

I’d just returned from a make or-break holiday in Spain with my now ex-husband.

Shelving our marital problems, I made an appointment at the Bristol Breast Clinic.

A biopsy came back as abnormal but inconclusive.

Finally, in January 2013, I was given a diagnosis of Grade 1 breast cancer.

‘We recommend an immediate full and radical mastectomy,’ my consultant said.

Then I’d need a course of strong chemotherapy.

‘There’s a high chance the treatment will cause fertility problems, so you should consider freezing your eggs,’ the consultant added.

New take on life

My husband and I were in no place to think about children. But still, I decided to go for it, and I had six eggs frozen, to be stored for five years.

That February, I had a mastectomy, followed by a full lymph node clearance, as micro metastatic cancer cells had been detected in my nodes.

A month later, I started chemo. At first, my hair didn’t fall out, and I dared to think it wouldn’t. But, after two cycles, it came out in clumps. Borrowing clippers from a friend, I gave myself a buzz cut.