Lorna's Story

We're sharing stories from some of our wonderful members of the community who have a diagnosis of Triple Negative. Lorna shares her story.

"Four days after the birth of my twins, I got the devastating diagnosis of stage 4 triple negative breast cancer. After developing a change to my voice, the decision was made to bring them into the world early as a mass was shown on my chest and we knew it was cancer. Naively I thought it would be something not as sinister. I was 27 years old.

I’d already had primary breast cancer at 25 and I thought it was all behind me and I could look forward to life with my then three-year-old son and our new-born twins. Sadly this wasn’t to be the case. I didn’t think I’d see their first steps, hear their first words, see my eldest son have his first day at school, yet three years later I have seen all those things and more and I’m still determined that it’s not my time. 

I think typically, triple negative cancer is known to have a poorer prognosis and fewer treatment lines due it not having that hormone element to target. However after trying immunotherapy (unsuccessfully) and a chemo combo which was successful for a while and I managed a few months treatment free, I’ve now been on a PARP inhibitor drug for two years which has kept me with no evidence of active disease.

Hand on my heart I never thought I’d be here. But there is hope and I think that’s what we all need to hold onto. This doesn’t mean I don’t have my down days as I really, really do, but my family keep me going. And who knows, maybe I’ll see my twins start their first day of school in 18 months time!

I’ve not been able to attend a Make 2nds Count retreat or anything yet unfortunately because of things going on with the kids, they have busier social lives than me! But it’s the support of the community Make 2nds Count offers that I think is great."

Thank you Lorna for sharing your story.