Brave Bourne mum with breast cancer urges women: ‘If in doubt, get it checked out’

A brave mum battling breast cancer is urging women to check themselves for lumps as she prepares for a double mastectomy operation.

Hannah Dring, 31, wants to get the message across that the disease can strike at any age, saying ‘if in doubt, get it checked out’.

The primary school teacher, who lives in Bourne with husband Dan and sons Dylan, 18 months, and three-year-old Henry, was diagnosed last October.

She then underwent 12 weeks of gruelling chemotherapy treatment and will have both of her breasts removed in the coming months.

She told the Mercury: “I’m one of the youngest people sitting in the chemo ward, which just goes to show this can happen at any age.

“One in eight women will get it but I don’t want anyone else to go through this. I feel like I’m taking one for the team.”

Hannah said it was often tough staying positive, especially after tests revealed she had the BRCA (BReast CAncer) gene meaning a double mastectomy was necessary.

But the support from her family and her desire to be the best mum to her two boys always keeps her going.

“The biggest thing for me is that I just want to see my boys grow up,” she said. “I don’t have a choice - I’ve got to fight this. I just have to get on with it. I can do that being grumpy and miserable or I can do it living my life to the full.”

Hannah, of Beech Avenue, said she had first visited the doctor in September 2019 after finding a lump while taking a shower.

“People ask me how I found it and it was purely by accident,” she said. “Was I regularly checking? No. Should I have been? Yes.

“I had a lump in the previous year when I was breast-feeding but it was nothing serious, just swollen lymph glands, so I wasn’t too worried. I thought it would probably be the same thing.”

It then came as a hammer blow to be told she had triple negative breast cancer, a highly aggressive form of the disease.

She has nothing but praise for the NHS with her chemotherapy treatment beginning promptly on November 4 and ending on January 20.

She now has several more sessions, with the final one pencilled in for March 9. “Not that I’m counting the days!” said Hannah.

“The fatigue is the biggest thing,” she added. “It’s tiring anyway being the mum of two boys but this is something else. Imagine being tired, like when you’ve got a newborn, then triple it.”

The treatment is so tough that she was recently bed-bound for three days.

“That was when it hit home that I couldn’t do what a mum is meant to do for her children,” said Hannah. “It’s incredibly hard coming to terms with that.

“Dylan is oblivious but Henry knows I’m poorly. He says ‘mummy’s got a poorly booby’. He’s used to me going to hospital and he even helped me shave my head. That was one of the hardest things. Now he just strokes my head and asks when my hair is going to grow back.”

Hannah is due to undergo surgery in April but this could be pushed back to June if she is cleared to take part in a two-month immunotherapy trial.

“I’m just looking to throw everything I can at it!” she said.

Having been told she has the BRCA gene, she said it was a “no brainer” to undergo the double mastectomy.

Having the gene can raise the chances of getting breast cancer to between 60 and 90 per cent in a woman’s lifetime.

“I’m just like ‘get them off!’” she said. “I was always looking for the answer to ‘why me?’ and this answers that to an extent. It’s in my genes.”

She may have to undergo radiotherapy after the operation, depending on lymph node scans, and there is always the risk the aggressive disease will come back.

“It’s tough and it’s scary,” said Hannah. “My friends and family get me through a lot of it and I also write my blog, which helps.

“My husband Dan has been amazing too. With the whole ‘in sickness and in health thing’ I say to him ‘you didn’t sign up for this!’ But he says that of course he did! I couldn’t get through this without him.”

She added: “The most important thing for me is to spread the message to check yourself because this doesn’t just affect older women. It shouldn’t be a taboo subject. ‘If in doubt, get it checked out’ - that’s my new motto.”

* Check out Hannah’s blog ‘Toddlers, Tantrums and a Tumour’ here.