CANCER BROUGHT US TOGETHER

Through the hardest time of her life, Hannah Phillips, 40, found a forever friend...

- MISHAAL KHAN

I could tell by the look on the doctor’s face that it wasn’t good news. And as I sat on the uncomfortable plastic chair in his office, the word cancer seemed to echo around us. It was August 2022 and after feeling a difference in my left breast, a thickening of the tissue and a strange sparking sensation, I’d decided to get checked. A relative had recently found a cyst too, so it was on my mind to get tested. Now a biopsy had revealed I had cancer in my left breast. Prior to my appointment, perhaps naively, I’d assumed everything was fine. After all, I was only 38, and a mum to Kit, then four, and Rudy, two. I couldn’t have cancer. I just couldn’t. But now, the words had left the doctor’s mouth and there was no taking them back. I had cancer and, as terrified as I was, I knew I had to fight this for my family.

Back at home, while the kids played upstairs, I started to tell my husband Matt, then 43, but before the words were out of my mouth my body was shaking with sobs.

INVALUABLE SUPPORT

Matt was great and told me we’d get through this together, and my family, who I phoned to tell the biopsy results, were wonderful too, but nobody really understood how I was feeling – the fear, the anxiety, the determination to be strong but also wanting to scream at the unfairness of it all. But I knew someone who would understand.