Steph is living proof of the benefits of exercise during breast cancer treatment

I’m from the UK, but I live near Chamonix in the French Alps. I feel very privileged to be here. I am a mum. We’ve got one set of twins, a girl and a boy who are now six. In my past life, I was an athlete. I did a lot of trail running and I am now a multi-sport athlete – I do a bit of everything.

I am now 48 and was diagnosed with cancer when I was 46. One day I was having a shower, and I found a little lump in my breast. If I’m honest, I just ignored it at first. A month or so later, I was at the doctor for something else and I mentioned that I found this funny little ball. If you’ve got kids and breastfed, it can be normal to have lumps and bumps, so it didn’t really bother me. Anyway, the doctor examined it and said ‘I really don’t think it’s anything to worry about. But if you’re worried, let’s go and have a scan.’

I had a scan, and they had to send me away for a few months because the lump was too small to biopsy. I went back three months later and had a mammogram and at that point it was quite clear that there was something up, they called in extra doctors to look at the scan, then I had a biopsy. By the time you’ve kind of gone through that process, you know something is wrong, In the back of my mind I knew that my mum had had breast cancer when she was in her early 60s. So it wasn’t a major surprise when I got a call to say they had found cancerous cells.

Because it was small, it seemed as if it was going to be really straightforward. They would do surgery and maybe not even need radiotherapy. ‘This is the best-case scenario,‘ they said. ‘We’ve found it really early.’

The surgery that they offered me was a single mastectomy because my breasts were so small. They said we can do a lumpectomy, but they’d have to remove quite a lot of tissue to get to where the lump is because it was quite close to my chest wall. They thought it would deform my breasts so significantly that they’d recommend a single mastectomy.

‘I don’t want to be wonky. I don’t want to only have one breast,’ I said. ‘Can you take the other one at the same time?’ I was met with complete shock. The first surgeon I saw absolutely point blank refused. He practically marched me off to go and see the psychotherapist there and then. I was obviously really upset because I had made a decision and it’s already incredibly traumatic to get a cancer diagnosis. It’s like a runaway train and you lose control of quite a lot of things in your life.

I went back to see my GP and she was amazing. ‘Go and see my friend who works in another hospital.’ She was a female surgeon and she immediately agreed to do the surgery I wanted, ‘yes, no problem.’

Anyway, I had the bilateral mastectomy I wanted and chose to stay flat. However, when they did the biopsy and they took the lymph nodes, it was found that even though the lump in my breast was so tiny, it was already in my lymph system.

So suddenly I was catapulted from it being found really early, ‘There’s nothing to worry about. We’ll just do a little surgery and off you go’ to the lump in my lymph system being bigger than the primary one, so it had obviously been there for a while. I was going to need to do chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

I was very, very lucky in that I was connected via my surgeon to an oncologist, who managed all the chemo treatment, who’s also an ultrarunner. He used to work for the Marie Curie Institute in Paris and he’s very progressive thinking. He’s very up to date on the latest treatments and the latest thinking in the oncology world.

In my first meeting with him my head went straight to thinking ‘I’m going to be bald, I’m going to spend the next six months with my head in a bucket of being sick all the time.’ He was looking at me and said ‘no, no. You will have times where you feel dreadful, but I want you to keep running. I want you to keep climbing. I want you to keep doing your stuff and it will help.’

So, I set myself a goal to move every day throughout my chemotherapy. When everything else is taken out of your control, when you’ve surrendered your body to doctors, appointments, tests, scans, and follow-ups, you have to hold on to the small things you can control. For me, that was sport and exercise.

I forced myself to get out every day, even on the worst days. I had this little loop around the house – down the road, across the field, cut through the neighbour’s garden and back up the hill. I would trudge around like that on rainy days, windy days, in my pyjamas with my bald head looking like absolute death. My neighbours would come out and wish me good luck. I made myself do it, and then each day I would be able to do a bit more and it was my key to getting through it.

When I’d go to see my oncologist he’s still like ‘look at this girl. Look how healthy she is. Look how well she’s doing. Did you know she just ran 10K yesterday?’ It made me realise that my journey was different from a lot of people who are going through chemo, in that I managed to tolerate it quite well. And I managed to keep myself positive and keep myself moving.

I decided to also have my ovaries removed, because I didn’t have genetic testing as my mum was over 60 when she had her breast cancer, so where I live, that means I don’t qualify for it. We also know that my grandma died of cancer, but we don’t know what the primary was, so my suspicion is that there is a genetic link.

I will be on hormone therapy for the next 5-10 years as my cancer was 100% oestrogen and 100% progesterone. I’m on an aromatase inhibitor called anastrozole, which is designed to suck all these hormones out of your system, and I will be on that for as long as I can tolerate it.

It comes with a whole load of side effects, not least because having had my ovaries out as well, that’s put me into an extreme menopause. I’m learning to manage it and I’m learning to accept that I’m not the same person that I was before. A lot of people say that the after cancer is the hardest. It takes a long time to accept and understand what, I absolutely hate the term, but what your ‘new normal’ is.

I get a lot of joint pains. I think it’s probably the most common side effect for pretty much all breast cancer patients who take this medication. It’s counterintuitive when your body hurts to try and move it, but actually the best solution is to move as it lubricates the joints. I’ve had to adapt to what my exercise regime looks like since cancer.

I’m trying to future proof myself by doing a lot more weight work and stuff that doesn’t necessarily come naturally to me, but along the extreme menopause comes sarcopenia. It’s when your muscle mass starts to degenerate with time. It’s a normal part of ageing but I think that the drugs accelerate that as well.

I had my kids very late in life and I’m on a mission now, I want to be around for them and I want to be able to run around with them as they get older and do stuff as a family and not let myself shrivel up into an old lady.

Breast cancer made me think, ‘what can I do with this?’ I’ve got a history of working as a coach. I’ve got a history in the sports industry and the fitness industry. My oncologist told me about a qualification to become an exercise oncologist. So last year I did the qualification which added to my existing collection of sports-related qualifications.

It’s not really that different to what I was doing before, in that I used to do a lot of personal training with private clients, getting them back in shape after injuries or after having a baby. Now, it’s staying in shape during cancer treatment or let’s get back in shape after cancer treatment.

I work with people with all types of cancer, but obviously my personal experience is breast cancer. So I like to work with breast cancer patients and I think breast cancer patients like to work with me because there’s a shared experience.

I’m excited to be working with Against Breast Cancer. This case study is for people to find out who I am and what I do and get a sense of my personality. We’re going to do a Q&A and a webinar so that people can ask any questions they may have around how they can incorporate exercise into their cancer journey. Plus we’re going to do some online classes throughout the month of November.

You can find out more about Steph’s cancer coaching on her website. She will be leading tailored training sessions throughout November. Click here for more information and to sign up. The Q&A took place in October however you can watch the full recording below.