A TEACHER is using her chemotherapy sessions to raise cash to research the “sneaky cancer” she was diagnosed with earlier this year.
Teesdale School’s head of food Katie Swinburne was diagnosed with invasive lobular breast cancer in March.
After discovering a lump, she had a mammogram and ultrasound testing, neither of which picked up the cancer. A biopsy was taken for analysis.
The following week she went to get the results, expecting to return to school in time for her students to give an international cooking demonstration to, amongst others, the Lord Lieutenant of Durham Sue Snowdon.
Mrs Swinburne said: “Four hours before that I was told I had invasive lobular breast cancer – so the bottom fell out of everything really. They acted very, very fast. I was given an MRI CT scan the following week and I had my breast surgery 25 days after the initial diagnosis.
“The NHS was amazing, I can’t praise the team at Darlington highly enough, my surgeon was Mr [Nigel] Corner, who was fantastic, and the breast care nurses have been phenomenal in their support.”
She added that the staff at Gainford Surgery had been very helpful and supportive.
Mrs Swinburne said: “The lobular element of my breast cancer is very hard to detect – it is known as the sneaky cancer, so it often doesn’t show up on a mammogram and it often doesn’t show up on ultrasound. Mine didn’t show up on a CT scan. I am very lucky to have found it.”
She added that because it is so hard to detect many women are not diagnosed until later stages when the outcomes are generally poor.
About 15 per cent of breast cancers are lobular. Very little research has been done into the disease and a Lobular Moon Shot Project has been launched to raise £20m to fund a five-year research project by the Institute for Cancer Research (ICR).
The 47-year-old said: “Because it is not so common I am not being given specific treatment for lobular because the research hasn’t been done, which is why I am fighting this battle and joining with the Moon Shot project to try and raise money.”
She is now walking a mile for each day she receives chemotherapy and will have to walk 112 miles to cover the 16 weeks of treatment she will receive.
Mrs Swinburne said: “I want to do everything I can to support Moon Shot and I also want to show my children – we have three boys – that when you are faced with great adversity you have to fight. My battle is with cancer, but it is also to raise funds to look for a specific treatment to make the outcomes better.
“The support I have received from friends, family, pupils, parents of pupils, colleagues, strangers, has been phenomenal. The messages of strength, hope and courage have made me want to fight even harder. If my pupils can see that however hard things get, you just have to keep going, it would be a great message.”
She has so far completed 11miles with her dog Blue and her 74-year-old mum Jenny Elleanor by her side. Mrs Swinburne said: “Last week I did it with a stick – I was almost on my hands and knees crawling that mile.”
To date, she has raised almost £4,000 for the cause. Visit giving.com/page/walk
throughchemo.giving.com/page/walkthroughchemo.
