An NHS worker was "panic stricken" and her "blood ran cold" after opening a letter.
Days earlier, Helen Hawksworth, 54, went for a routine scan that concerned doctors and caused them to send her for a biopsy.
The next three weeks were a "living hell" for the Wallasey woman.
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She told the ECHO: "That is the worst thing, the wait, because you're just in limbo.
"It's like a living hell. You go to sleep at night and you wake up and it's the first thing that comes into your head."
Helen has worked at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, Wirral since 2015, but "never in a million years" did she think she'd be a patient there.
She had no symptoms or lumps until she went the routine mammogram picked up a cancerous growth on her breast.
The mum of two sat with her husband Colin in a consultant's room in June 2021 as the consultant and a breast care nurse told Helen she had breast cancer.
Helen said: "I just cried. I just burst out crying.
"But I think as well, it was a kind of relief as well, because I'd waited so long for the results, it was a relief that at least I knew what was wrong with me."
She added: "I'm lucky I've got a wonderful family around me who helped me, supported me, hugged me when I needed to be hugged.
"I had some really dark days, really did nothing but cry, because you don't know what's going to happen. It's that fear of what is going to happen to me.
"When you hear that word that you've got cancer of any kind, you just automatically think, 'I'm going to die, I'm not going to see my children grow up, I'm not going to be here, I've got so much more to do with my life, and it's going to be taken away from me'."
Helen had a mastectomy - a surgery to remove her left breast - within five weeks of getting her result.
That was then biopsied, and within two weeks of the results, she started chemotherapy on the same Delamere ward of The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre where she works as a chemotherapy support worker.
She found comfort in the familiarity.
Helen said: "I knew the ward, I knew all the nurses that treated me there, so I knew I was in safe hands.
"But I was frightened. I was scared. I didn't want chemotherapy. Nobody wants it, do they? But I knew I had to have it because I knew it was going to save my life."
She added: "I did feel sorry for the nurses treating me because they were as upset as me because they're my friends and my work colleagues and they had to see me go through what I went through.
"But I'm glad I was treated there."
Eager to escape the prison of her own home, Helen returned to work on January 4 after completing chemo at the end of October.
She still gets injections of Herceptin - a medicine that encourages the immune system to attack and kill the cancer cells - every three weeks until August.
But she's back on the Delamere ward with a new level of understanding about the patients she supports.
Helen explained: "I don't know whether it's influenced me to do my job any differently, but I'm certainly very, very aware now of how our patients do feel.
"When previously they told us, 'I feel like this, I feel like that', we'd never understand that, but now I do understand.
"I know how they feel. I've walked in their shoes. I've been there and done it. I totally understand much more about treatment and how they feel.
"Although you've got a lot of support around you - and I did have a lot of support, loads of support, and I can't thank them enough for the support I got - it's still a lonely road you walk when you've got cancer, because you're that person dealing with it."
On Friday night, Helen and 600 hundred people who've had cancer, or whose loved ones have had cancer, donned green t-shirts, glowsticks and tutus as they walked 8km around Liverpool to mark World Cancer Day.
Iconic Liverpool landmarks like the Three Graces and St George's Hall, as well as The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, glowed green on Friday, February 4.
The event - the first Glow Green walk in Liverpool - raised £100,000 for The Clatterbridge Cancer Charity.
Helen told the ECHO : "Our charity is an amazing charity, and they do so much work raising so much money.
"I just felt that, after all the support and care I've been given, I want to give something back to them.
"My family are all doing it together, and it's just our way of saying thank you for all the support they've given us, because without them, it'd be a different story."
Katrina Bury, head of charity at The Clatterbridge Cancer Charity said "We've been overwhelmed by the response to our first ever Glow Green night walk.
"It's going to be a very powerful sight as buildings across the region light up green for Clatterbridge on World Cancer Day, while our supporters create their own wave of colour around the City, walking together against cancer.
"The money raised tonight will fund the latest research, new technology, innovations in care, the best environment and the most positive experience for patients at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre.
"We also want to thank our generous event sponsors Brabners and Regatta along with the many businesses and people who are helping to make Glow Green possible."
You can register your interest for Glow Green 2023, by visiting www.clatterbridgecc.org.uk
