Siobhan Harrison was 23 and getting dressed for work as a barista when she noticed a lump on her left breast. She thought it was a pimple and tried to pop it, but nothing came out. Instead, the skin turned purple and the lump kept growing.
The young woman started keeping an eye on it and saw that it had grown a little. She thought the spot had become irritated from squeezing it, that it had become infected, or that it was an ingrown hair, but something wasn’t right.
After lengthy medical appointments, Harrison was referred for more tests, but she was told the wait could be nine months. With a bad feeling, she decided to speed things up privately and paid £200 for a private ultrasound.
Her decision was vital, because the results showed a cancerous lump.
The biopsy, carried out by the NHS on June 22, 2021, confirmed stage 2 triple-negative breast cancer. The tumor was already over two centimeters and growing quickly. She had surgery the following week; in July, she had a lumpectomy to remove it.
Before chemotherapy, Harrison underwent egg retrieval because the treatment could affect her fertility. She started in August: she lost her hair after the first round and received 12 rounds through December. At the start of 2022, she had two weeks of radiotherapy.
I found it really difficult. After the first round, the treatment left me exhausted. I was in a really bad way. Although I knew I was going to lose my hair, I didn’t expect it to affect me so much, so I bought a wig to feel a little more like myself.
But all that effort paid off. In the spring of 2022, she received the news she had been waiting months for: she was cancer-free. Although she admits that the fear of a recurrence is still there, today she uses her experience to make sure other young women don’t ignore their body’s warning signs.
Siobhan never imagined she could have cancer at just 23. Now she hopes that the little “pimple” that changed her life can help save someone else’s.