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How one grandmother stays positive despite three bouts of cancer 3 hours ago Caroline Gall West Midlands Kirsty Priest Kirsty Priest (right) said if she did not remain strong, she would feel sorry for herself When Kirsty Priest was told she had cancer for a third time in 15 years, she thought: "What have I done to deserve this? I must be a really bad person." She was treated twice for separate cases of breast cancer, 10 years apart, but earlier this year was told she had a brain tumour. On top of that, she found out during her earlier treatment that she had a mutated gene which could double her risk of further breast cancer, meaning regular treatments for the rest of her life.
"Touch wood, I could live for years," the 53-year-old said. "We haven't got a crystal ball, they don't know how long I've got, but if I'm having all of this treatment, I'm heading it straight on," she said. "It's incurable but it's about controlling it from spreading." After the successful removal of the brain tumour, Kirsty, a grandmother, said she was "putting my big positive girlie pants on".
She says she plans to enjoy every moment of her life while fundraising and supporting others in similar situations. Kirsty Priest Kirsty has fundraised for the breast cancer unit at Russells Hall Hospital, in Dudley Her first diagnosis came when she was 38, then a single parent of a daughter and an autistic son. Told she had stage three breast cancer, she had a mastectomy along with further surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and took the drug Herceptin for 18 months.
"I just thought it was a death sentence, 'I'm not going to survive this, but I've got to survive this because I have two children' - and I did," Kirsty, from Stourbridge in the West Midlands, said. About 10 years later, she had been given the all clear after a mammogram - when she found a lump. Doctors confirmed it was cancerous, but different to her first diagnosis.
Kirsty said she chose a second mastectomy and further treatment Kirsty said the discovery was fairly new to the doctors she saw at the time as "the nurses were reading it off a piece of paper to me because they hadn't heard about it or been trained about it". Kirsty Priest After her diagnoses, Kirsty will need injections and scans for the rest of her life When more cases of breast cancer are detected in families than expected, it can be due to inheriting such mutated genes, according to the NHS. An abnormal CHEK2 gene can, at the very least, double a person's risk of breast cancer in their life, Breast Cancer Trials say.
"It was, 'OK I've gone through it again. I've just got to tackle it head on, what will happen will happen'," Kirsty said. Later she was told she was in remission from that cancer, prompting her first fundraising efforts for the breast cancer ward at Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley, where she was treated.
The 53-year-old has raised £11,500 for the unit since then. But towards the end of last year, Kirsty said she began having pain in her shoulder. By February she was feeling dizzy and bumping into things and saw a doctor who told her it was vertigo and prescribed painkillers.
"Luckily, I had a second opinion with nurses at my yearly health check-up later the same day who said 'go straight to A&E, your blood pressure is through the roof'," she remembered. "I went and within 24 hours I was in a hospital bed being told I've got a brain tumour." Kirsty Priest Kirsty said she wanted to continue to enjoy life and be surrounded by positive people She was treated successfully but said she will now need to have Herceptin injections every three weeks, along with MRI scans every three months, for the rest of her life. "They are treating me for breast cancer again now... and it is stage four," she said.
"Even though I've got no tumours in my body, they're suspecting that I've got lots of cancer cells floating around my body so they're targeting killing that with chemo." The aim of the injections was to stop cancer cells from "splitting and attaching" in her body, she added. Telling her family each time that cancer had returned was very traumatic, she said, especially for her parents, particularly her father who she inherited the mutated gene from and who felt a sense of guilt. Another member of her family also has the gene but her daughter does not.
"You just think, 'What have I done to deserve this? I must be a really bad person', but I know I'm not a bad person. I do a lot for others," Kirsty said.
"I think it's just bad luck. I've got the gene and it's come back." Dean Wood DJ friends, including Dee Wood, have organised an event to raise money for the two hospitals that have helped Kirsty Friends have come together to organise a charity fundraising night for the two hospitals who helped her, with DJs playing at The Fox Inn at Stourton, in Staffordshire, next month. DJ Dee Wood said he was honoured to jointly organise the event.
"Whilst in Tenerife alongside the other DJ's in February, I asked if they would play for this cause to help raise awareness and funds," he said. "There wasn't really much of a difference in the response I received from each DJ asked - it was unequivocally a 'yes' throughout. "We are buzzing to do this for Kirsty." More on this story Related internet links
Source: BBC
