A woman claims she might not have had to have her breast removed aged just 23 had doctors not dismissed her as being 'too young' to have cancer. Alicia Mcgoogan said she started feeling pain and discomfort in her right breast in December 2021, which she thought was just from her time of the month.
But when her nipple started leaking a yellow-sticky discharge she booked an appointment with her GP and was eventually transferred to the breast clinic at Burnley General Teaching Hospital. The legal recruiter said that a blockage in her milk duct was identified so she had a microdochectomy to remove the duct in January 2022, and discovered it was a benign tumour.
After the procedure, Alicia thought she was out of the woods. But afterwards, the former law student claims she mentioned to a nurse that she'd felt a lump on her breast but they didn't examine it and just said it was scar tissue from the surgery.
As the lump got bigger, the singleton claims she pushed for further scans, and after a mammogram and biopsy, was eventually diagnosed with stage two breast cancer on May 18th. Alicia said that the lump had reached 8mm and the cancer had spread from her nipple to her surrounding breast tissue and chest wall, so she had a full mastectomy of her right breast.
She then had IVF treatment followed by six cycles of chemotherapy before she started proton beam therapy this month, and after she's recovered will have surgery to reconstruct her breast. Despite enduring such a 'whirlwind' experience, Alicia who's now 24, said that staying positive has been paramount and she's looking forward to eventually returning to normal life.
Alicia is now keen to raise awareness of the importance of anyone with breast cancer symptoms not to allow them to be 'brushed under the carpet' if they're dismissed by doctors simply because of their age. East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust apologised that Alicia feels she did not get the support she needed and said that when she gets in touch directly they will investigate it.
Alicia, of Manchester, said: "The doctors said plenty of times that I was probably too young to have breast cancer. They kind of said 'don't worry, you're very young, it's highly highly unlikely for it to be breast cancer'.
"It's only when I came in and said that I wanted another scan [mammogram] and they agreed that's when the ball started rolling in terms of finding out it was cancer. The main thing I say when speaking to people my age is that I felt that they thought it wouldn't be cancer because of my age, because it's not normal for a 23-year-old to have breast cancer, as it usually occurs in middle age and older women.
"I think because of my age they maybe just thought that it wouldn't be the worst, so they weren't quick enough to rule it out. During that time, this tumour had about four months to grow to get to the point of stage two where it had actually spread from my nipple to the surrounding breast tissue and chest wall.
"I feel like if the cancer was caught earlier on, then the chances of me having a mastectomy would have been reduced. It may have been where I would have had a lumpectomy instead, where they take the tumour out and I get to keep my breast.
"But because of the time that it had to grow and spread to different parts of my breast, the only option was to remove the full breast. I do feel like if they would have caught it quicker I would have had a better chance of saving it. The tumours do grow very quickly, so it's definitely like a race against the clock."
Alicia's symptoms began at the beginning of December 2021 and developed as the month progressed. Alicia said: "I had pain in my right breast, it was a similar pain to what any woman would experience when it's their time of the month.
"I didn't think much of it at first, and got on with normal life. The next symptom I had, I was in the bath at the time, when I had a yellow-ish discharge from my right nipple and it was at that point that I thought that there was definitely something going on, that it wasn't normal or related to my period, and that I better get it checked out.
"I called my GP and at first they said it could maybe be a skin infection in my milk duct and they prescribed me a course of antibiotics. I had them and still nothing had changed. I was still getting this discharge and the pain was slowly increasing to the point where I was taking painkillers regularly throughout the day. With the discharge, I felt like a breastfeeding mother to be honest. I had to wear breastfeeding covers. It was very sticky and stained everything."
The 24-year-old claims she returned to the GP as her antibiotics weren't improving her symptoms, this time for a face-to-face appointment. As blood was discovered in her discharge, she was transferred to the breast clinic at Burnley General Teaching Hospital, had a scan which revealed that one of her milk ducts was blocked.
She said she then had surgery to remove her milk duct and the results revealed she had atypical cells, which was basically a benign tumour, and she thought she was in the all-clear. Alicia said: "Around this sort of time I was still having pain in my breast, which was getting worse and I also started to feel quite a large lump, which had just come around in a matter of weeks.
"It was getting big quite quickly. The lump started off maybe the size of a golf ball, it was more inside the breast rather than on the surface, so it was like just the top of a golf ball, not the whole thing.
"When I went for a check-up appointment after the microdochectomy, I said to the nurse that I had this lump in my breast and wasn't sure if it was related to my diagnosis and she didn't check my breast at all, she didn't even touch it and just said it was scar tissue, and that was that. I remember being in the mammogram appointment and I could tell by the nurse's face that she'd found something, and they said that we need to do a biopsy.
"On the 18th May I was brought into my doctors and that's when I was told I had stage two breast cancer. I just knew something wasn't right and I geared myself up to hear those words. I prepared myself for the worst and hopefully then it's not as much of an impact when I do hear.
"My mum was in bits and that's been one of the hardest things for me - watching the impact of the diagnosis on my family and just seeing how they've been affected by it all. I was in too much of a shock, I didn't cry at all. I was more thinking 'right ok, what do we do now then? What's the next step?'"
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Alicia then had a full mastectomy of her right breast on May 30th and exactly a fortnight later had IVF treatment and zoladex injections. She had six cycles of chemotherapy in August and started proton beam therapy this month. She'll eventually have surgery to reconstruct her breast using skin, muscle and fatty tissue from elsewhere in her body, perhaps her thigh.
Alicia said: "I'm a size 34C, so it filled quite a large area of my breast. It was quite big but it grew very quickly from the end of December when I started to feel it to when I got my mastectomy. It got over 8mm, it had gone from the right side of my right breast, down and underneath it, which is why they had to do a full mastectomy because they couldn't save any part of the breast.
"It's been a bit of a whirlwind to be honest. I've left my job on sick leave, so I've not been working to focus on treatment, my social life has been impacted massively. I just want to raise awareness of if women have any symptoms of breast cancer, not to just brush it under the carpet if they're turned away from the doctor because of their age.
"Just keep pressing on and getting to the bottom of things and keep asking for scans and not to ignore the symptoms if they know it's not right. I think if a 45-year-old or 50-year-old woman came into the breast clinic with the same symptoms that I had, they would have been given a mammogram straight away and they didn't with me, they did every other scan before they did a mammogram, because of my age.
"I have a friend whose mother has just been diagnosed with breast cancer and I said to her that I just kind of treated it like a cold almost and was just really positive. And thought that I'm going to get through this because I've got the best NHS treatment and in a year's time I'm going be back to doing what I love and back to normal life. I just think that if you have that mindset with it, you'll get through it. It's just staying positive."
A spokesperson for East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust said: "We know every cancer diagnosis is devastating for patients and their families and everyone at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust is working each and every day to treat cancer as quickly as possible and save lives. We are sorry Alicia feels she did not get the support she needed. We would encourage her to contact us directly so we can talk to her about her concerns and look into her experience.
"If anyone is worried about any symptoms they think could be cancer, speak to a GP urgently. It's important to remind people also that you can help to reduce your risk of cancer through maintaining a healthy lifestyle, avoiding exposure to known cancer-causing substances and taking, when offered, medicines or vaccines that can prevent cancer from developing."
