A mum who thought her dog just wanted more cuddles has thanked the pup for "saving her life", after discovering a lump in her breast that turned out to be cancer.
Tanya Hibberd, 50, had been on a two-week holiday to Cyprus with husband Gary Hibberd, 64, and after returning home noticed that usually independent husky Sapphire was more affectionate than normal. For four weeks, the dog cuddled up to Tanya and placed her head on, and pawed at, the exact same spot on her breast.
Tanya, then 46, decided to feel her breast as a precaution and discovered a "massive gobstopper-sized" lump. After visiting her GP, Tanya was stunned to be diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer and then underwent gruelling chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy.
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Although the customer service team leader regularly checked for lumps, she credits Sapphire, now six, for saving her life, believing it may have been too late to have treatment if it was spotted any later. Remarkably, Tanya said Sapphire was born on the day her father died from non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that she was told by a medium she had come into her life "for a reason".
Now cancer-free, the mum-of-one is keen to highlight that if pets who usually "only want cuddles on their terms" start to take an interest in you then they may be trying to alert you to something. Tanya, from Southampton, said: "Sapphire saved my life.
"I'd been on holiday to Cyprus and had done the normal checks that I do every month and not noticed anything. When I came back I started feeling more tired than usual.
"Sapphire is quite a lonely dog, she likes her own company, but she kept sitting on me and putting her head on my right breast every night, which was really unusual. For four weeks she kept doing that, I just thought she was being cuddly.
"I initially thought it was because we had been away for a two-week holiday but then it became more frequent and she spent longer snuggling into me. I didn't think anything of it and then one day she kept nudging there so I touched myself and discovered a lump.
"It felt massive and a bit like a gobstopper. I actually thought it was a cyst at first. I got my husband to feel it and he said I needed to go to the doctor."
Tanya was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2018. She believes that her tumour was 3cm to begin with, but grew to 5cm before she started chemotherapy at Southampton General Hospital in November 2018.
She then had a lumpectomy in April 2019 and at this point was told she was cancer free. This was followed by a precautionary 20 sessions of radiotherapy to ensure any stray cells had been eliminated, which finished in July 2019.
Tanya said: "I had 12 rounds of aggressive chemo, after the fourth or fifth week it had shrunk quite considerably and at that point she stopped laying her head on me up there. She'd still lay with me and if I was really poorly during chemo she'd lay with me under the covers, which is unusual for a husky as they're quite warm animals.
"She's now very protective of me. If I take her out for a walk she growls at people if they get too close to me."
Tanya credits Sapphire with saving her life, believing the pooch sniffed it out long before she'd noticed the lump. She continued: "We tell everybody that she smelt my cancer.
"I may have found it but I don't know. I checked myself three or four weeks before that and probably would have again in another couple of weeks. But by then because of the type of cancer I had, it may have been too late to have the treatment or might not have been cured."
Tanya says that Sapphire is a "very special dog". She added: "It's really strange because I woke up one Saturday morning and decided I wanted a dog - I'd never had a dog before in my life. We found Sapphire on a pet site, drove to Wolverhampton and she chose me - out of the three dogs that were available she wouldn't leave me alone.
"A medium [who visited her house] told me that she was sent there for a reason when she was a puppy. Her birthday, the 13th December, is the date that my dad died so I think she was sent for a reason.
"She's very special and will always be very special in my heart. I think she saved my life. I would just say that if you have a dog or pet that generally only wants cuddles on their terms and then they start taking an actual interest in you then maybe they are trying to tell you something."
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a less common type of breast cancer that is sometimes described as a faster-growing type of breast cancer. It develops in about one in five women with breast cancer (15 to 20%).
It is more common in women under 40. It also seems to be more common in black women. Breast cancer cells may have receptors (proteins) that hormones or a protein called HER2 can attach to.
A specialist breast cancer doctor takes a sample of cancer cells during a biopsy or surgery to test for these receptors. If these receptors are found, you are usually treated with hormonal or targeted therapies.
Triple-negative breast cancer does not have receptors for hormones, or HER2. This means treatment with hormonal or targeted therapy will not work. Chemotherapy, along with surgery and radiotherapy, is the most effective treatment for triple-negative breast cancer.
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