Priyanka found there was little support for children when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, so she wrote a book and started a new business

After being diagnosed with breast cancer, Priyanka’s main concern was for her children but she found it difficult to find support for them. Here she tells her story and what she did next to help families going through the same as hers did.

Just a few months after my husband and I moved to a new home with our two daughters, I got my diagnosis of breast cancer. It was a Saturday morning, and I was just checking and I felt a lump, so I called my husband and he felt the lump too. On Monday morning, I had a doctor call me over the phone. I went through everything with her and then she asked me to come in. She said, ‘It’s nothing to worry about, but I’d rather check it out,’ and referred me to the breast clinic.

I went in, I had my biopsy, and then they wanted to do further tests and another biopsy. I think it was another week later when I got called in and I was told it was triple negative breast cancer. It wasn’t something I was expecting, so hearing those words just completely broke me. A Macmillan nurse took my husband and I to one of the side rooms, and the first thing I asked was ‘What’s going to happen to my children?’ That’s all I could think about. It wasn’t what was going to happen to me.

I tried to reach out to so many places, including Macmillan, but unfortunately they don’t provide much support for children whose parent has breast cancer. I think they’re just as important in this journey but they’re always forgotten. Most people think they wouldn’t understand – yes, the two-year-old wouldn’t but my 4-year-old was so clued on to what was going on.

When we told her, she was quite quiet and subdued. We went out that morning and we came home and had lunch, that’s when all the questions came out. She had time to process it and think about what was going to happen. And one of her comments was “Mummy, I don’t want you to lose your hair,” and that was really hard because I didn’t know what was going to happen.

She wanted to see how the chemotherapy was going to be administered. The hospitals were still following COVID protocol so I wasn’t supposed to take anybody in but for that first session, the Macmillan nurse made arrangements and allowed her to come in to see what was going to happen. Afterwards, she took my daughter out, sat down with her and asked her if she had any questions and what her thoughts were, which was really nice and quite comforting.

I went through chemotherapy and I agreed to have the cold capping but after two sessions, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was just seeing my hair falling out. Every morning, my hair was getting thinner and thinner. It really got me down. I said to my husband, ‘I can’t do this anymore. I know it’s one of Keya’s biggest worries about me losing my hair but it’s making me feel really anxious.’ I said I just wanted to shave it off. He got some clippers from one of our neighbours and he shaved it off.

I tried to cover it up by wearing a bandana but Keya cottoned on that something was going on. One morning she peered through the door and saw something was different. She came over and then just stroked my head and said ‘mummy, What happened?’ And I said to her ‘I’ve taken it off.’ Then my youngest came in and she was not fazed. I was given a wig, so I put the wig on, then she said ‘Mummy, your hair’s growing back again’ and then when I took it off, ‘Did you have another haircut?’

Even though it was my choice to shave it off, it was still playing on my mind and I knew it was affecting them. I remember sitting on the sofa waiting for my husband, Keya came in and we had a cry. I had to just reassure her that it’s fine, it will all grow back. She understood but then said ‘I just want you to be old, mummy,’ and that was just hard to hear.

I got the all-clear in November last year. I had six rounds of chemotherapy which started in July 2022 and finished in November, and then I had my mastectomy in December.

I was supposed to have the reconstruction at the same time but my surgery, which was supposed to be 7-8 hours, ended up being 10 and a half hours, so they had to stop. The main thing though was that the tumour was out and they’d got everything that they needed to. The reconstruction was sort of like an added bonus but it could be done at a later date.

When that date finally came, there was a sense of relief, but I knew it was going to bring up bad memories for the girls. It’s only been in the past six to eight months that my youngest, who’s just turned 5, has been able to articulate her feelings and process what happened back then and what she saw. It takes time but, again, we’ve created that space where they can come to us and talk to us about it.

It took us almost a year of going through treatment to find the Hummingbird Centre in Bicester, who provide support for cancer patients and their families. They have been immense support. We go every Friday and it has become such a safe space, not just for the children, but for me. They have counselling, holistic treatments, you can chat to other cancer patients and family members, and the volunteers are just amazing.

It’s now been a year since I started my own business to help young children.

I’ve had other things going on during my cancer journey, which made me rethink my career and I’ve gone into coaching for children. Again, there are so many counsellors and coaches providing support for adults with breast cancer but their children are forgotten. They also need that support. They also need an outlet, and parents aren’t always the first people that a child will go to. But having somebody else who they can talk to openly helps.

As I was going through this journey, wherever I turned, I kept hearing that there wasn’t anything for children. A few people suggested, ‘Why don’t you write something?’ So I started writing my journey through the eyes of my child. The name of a publisher cropped up online so I contacted them and sent in the manuscript. They said they don’t really do a lot of picture books, but when they read the manuscript they just saw the potential for this book, how many people and how many families it would support.

They put me in touch with another, well-known author to help me and edit the work that I’d already started. I didn’t realise that when I submitted it, the story just came to an end. It didn’t really have a defined ending. Alan, my editor, guided me and helped give the story a happy ending, an ending with hope. I know it’s not the case for everybody but it’s just bringing that bit of hope to the child and showing them that they’re not in this alone, there’s other children going through this.

It’s also a tool for families to say there are people out there to help you and this book is a form of helping you to reach out to your children and speak to them and find out what’s going on with them. There are lots of book out there that tells you the journey of cancer but there are none where a child can share their feelings.

It’s not just for the child to answer either, I think the grown-ups also need to be just as vulnerable to show the child that it’s OK to feel this way, and I think the more we do it, it’s going to seem normal to the child, so it’s normalising how we’re feeling and doing this together rather than separately.

Priyanka’s book, When Mummy Had Cancer, is available now on Amazon.