'My best friend and I are inseperable, she helped me through my cancer diagnosis and now I'm helping her through chemo.' | ✍️ Lyndsey Doyle writes.
I’ve known my best friend Kimberley since we were 17.
I knew my boobs well, and I’d felt fatty lumps and cysts before, but nothing like this. This one felt different. My mind raced with thoughts of the future and what was going to happen to me – my kids, at the time were just 14 and 11. It came as a shock. Even the doctor was also surprised it turned out to be cancer – and that I’d been able to feel a lump so small.
Unfortunately, the cancer had spread to my sentinel lymph node, and I needed further surgery. My second operation in just four weeks. I was distraught, but Kimberley kept me going. On the operating table that August, doctors removed another 20 lymph nodes. I’d always had long blonde hair and felt that losing it was a new chapter. When it started to fall out after my first round of chemo, Kimberley and my kids shaved it off. It felt like a rebirth after the difficult year I’d had.sessions, but she was my rock. She’d take me out for lunch, and we’d go out walking together.