As told to Shadé Owomoyela.

I was a low-risk pregnancy. But when I got to 32 weeks, I stopped being able to breathe properly. My friends and family reassured me that it was probably nothing – I was just heavily pregnant – so I carried on as usual.

I remember I had a client over and I couldn’t catch my breath, so I ended up calling 111. I was called in for a chest X-ray, and at first, they just sent me home. The next day I had loads of missed calls from the cardiology centre asking me to come in. That’s when they found the mass next to my heart. They told me I had a tumour in my chest and would need to be tested for thymoma, lymphoma and teratoma. At the time, I didn’t know these were types of cancer and thought I just needed some tablets.

When you’re pregnant, you’re not allowed any radiation scans, so the diagnostic process was long – it took over 15 weeks from the day they found the mass in my chest to the call telling me the news: I had cancer.

I couldn’t have the proper tests while pregnant, so there was a lot of waiting around and by the time it came round to giving birth, it didn’t go as I’d planned.

The birth was traumatic. I was supposed to be in the birth centre – which basically means you don’t have nurses at your beck and call as they believe you’re going to have a safe pregnancy without complications (my pregnancy was deemed a very low-risk before they discovered the mass). 

I ended up having my baby three weeks early via an emergency C-section, which wasn’t what I wanted at all. I’d never considered a C-section, so I panicked the whole way through. It wasn’t the way I wanted my pregnancy to end.

I’d planned to stop working at 37 weeks pregnant, but even when doctors found the tumour, I kept going. I felt like I couldn’t stop. 

I wasn’t very academic at school, and I didn’t enjoy it – I was always getting into trouble. I already knew what I wanted to do and that involved make-up. By the time I was 20, I had my own business as a self-employed make-up artist and brow technician. I built up my business over four years by word-of-mouth in my local area and managed to buy my own house recently, so I have a really strong work ethic.

When you’re in a job, any kind of job, dealing with people is always going to be hard. And when you’re self-employed, people treat you a bit like a robot. Because I was working 12-hour days before my diagnosis, people still expect me to be available. It was only when I started treatment for cancer that I finally started to put some boundaries in place. 

Some clients get it and are understanding. Some people will ask me to make an exception for them because it’s their birthday or they’re going to an event. Being self-employed can make you a bit of a people-pleaser, and that makes it difficult to say no.

Because I kept having last-minute hospital appointments, I had to cancel clients at short notice for the first time in my life. I’ve worked through every illness I can think of and having to move my clients around made me anxious, especially because I didn’t want to tell people what was going on. My partner wanted me to stop working and was understandably frustrated that I didn’t; I thought I could just push through. I wish I’d listened now. I put myself through a lot of stress just to please people. 

It was seeing one of my neighbours go to the gym and then the sauna after work that made me really start to prioritise self-care. I realised that I could have been living like that all along instead of working 12 hours a day and not giving myself any time to breathe. Even before I found out I was pregnant, I realised I should have been taking more time out for myself.

I’ve stopped working now. I really need to take it easy becasue of the treatment, but that means I get to spend lots of downtime with my family who live close by. I still like to be on the go, but little things like being taken out to lunch by my mum and sister or going for a long walk with my partner and baby have been so soothing for me. It’s a big change from those long days in my studio – even though I’m itching to get back to work.

I’ve learnt that I need to work shorter hours. I worked too much before, and that’s not good for anybody’s health. 

I’m lucky enough to be financially looked after and have a working partner, but I find not working and not having an income stressful. I’ve never had to worry about my money, but our mortgage runs out this year and my maternity leave runs out at the end of this month, and I’m finding that scary. I’m worried about buying essentials for my baby and the price of food because the costs really do stack up.

Before I had cancer, I made a really comfortable salary, but I recently calculated that cancer has cost me nearly £2,500 from the beginning of January to the end of June 2023. That’s the accumulation of hospital parking tickets, petrol for driving to and from appointments, buying food when I’ve been in hospital for longer than expected, wigs, CBD products and other painkillers. And that’s on top of not being able to work.

I feel guilty about complaining because I can pay my bills, but I also feel guilty about not working. I need to be in remission before my life can proceed. 

I was lucky enough to have a GoFundMe set up and it has honestly made the world of difference. I think money is an awkward and taboo thing, and no one really wants to talk about it, but I’d advise anyone going through a serious illness to seek financial support and not feel guilty for taking the help they need.

That goes for mental health support, too. I’ve never struggled before, but the steroids and medication I’m on have brought on low moods. There have been days when I couldn’t get out of bed, when I was too depressed to even hold my child. 

Aside from financial and emotional struggles, my social life has changed massively. When I got diagnosed, people would cross the road from me in the high street because they didn’t know what to say. And then there were some people that I expected to hear from, and when I didn’t it devastated me. But those simple messages I did get from people I hadn’t seen in a long time wishing me well were so uplifting.

The thing with cancer is that it doesn’t just affect the patient; it affects everyone else too.

My close relationships really took a hit. My partner struggled in the beginning because we had to move into my mum’s for extra support. He was rushing me around to appointments and he just wanted me to be healthy again. My younger sister also really struggled to see me go through depressive episodes because I’m usually such a bubbly and upbeat person.

Some of my family were in denial that I had cancer. Even when I was officially diagnosed, my older family members would say things like, “Why would you have cancer? It doesn’t run in our family.”

People think it’s a genetic thing, but cancer doesn’t discriminate and it can just come out of nowhere. Nobody wants to believe that someone so young could have cancer.

The treatment I’m having can cause your periods to stop and menopausal symptoms to occur but you usually get your fertility back once you start to recover. Some women get the chance to freeze their eggs before chemotherapy or radiotherapy but because my cancer was so aggressive and it took so long for me to start treatment, that wasn’t an option. Even though I have a baby, the chance that I could lose my fertility at 23 is terrifying.

I found out in May that I’m not in remission yet. That was difficult. There was so much pressure for me to be better, because everyone was rooting for me. I found myself crying a lot and getting frustrated, but I had my first of 10 proton therapy treatments in July.  

I’ve learned so much from my experience, but the biggest lesson is just how important it is to put your health first. I urge everyone to listen to their bodies when something doesn’t feel right, and to always carve out time for self-care.  

The other thing I want people with a serious illness (or supporting someone with a serious illness) to know is that money shouldn’t be taboo. No one really wants to talk about it, but when it comes to life or death, you have to accept the help people want to give you. 

Images: courtesy of Zoe Plastiras