Danielle @raising_joey

We're super excited about today's amazing guest blogger. We're delighted to introduce you to Danielle. Danielle was diagnosed with HER2+ breast cancer in 2018 and, only a week later, she discovered that the cancer had spread to her liver. Danielle says lives in Kent with her husband, Tim, and their adorable daughter, Joey. She says that she doesn't let her disease define her; she uses it as her motivation to live every day to the fullest with her wonderful family. You can find Danielle @raising_joey where she talks about all aspects of living with incurable cancer.  

In addition to sharing her own story on social media, Danielle is also one of the co-founders of @metastatic_mammas; an incredible support network for parents living with stage IV cancers.    

Here's Danielle's story:  

"Since being diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer in November 2018 aged 29, life has taken some weird and wonderful turns as well as some pretty heart-breaking and terrifying ones too.  

After picking myself up off the floor for the sake of my 6 month old daughter at the time, I decided that I wanted to be a part of the changing narrative that is life with terminal cancer.  

When I first heard that my breast cancer was incurable I was in complete despair. I searched high and low on the internet for stories of survival from other women with the same diagnosis. However, I couldn't find any.  

What I did find was a whole host of ladies (and men) with all different types of cancers and they were all LIVING well with their disease.  

I realised that I had to make this journey of mine through life, albeit a completely different one from what I had planned, a story that my daughter would be proud of.  

 I stopped moping around and started taking action. I had 6 rounds of chemotherapy as well as 2 continuous targeted therapy drugs, Herceptin and Pertuzumab that I still have now every 3 weeks. Whilst on chemo I decided that I wanted to raise money for cancer research by running 10k for Race for Life. I managed to get a group of us together and collectively we raised £6000. From there a fire was lit in me to keep sharing my story and keep raising money as my own defence against cancer.  

I decided to apply to be the subject of a campaign called 'The Worlds Most Precious Stone' and actually got the part. A film crew from Paris followed my hair loss journey and made a lock of my hair into a yellow 1.59carat diamond to symbolise hope, strength and light. A Parisian jewellery designer then created it into a diamond necklace that was on display in The Cancer Centre for Immunology in Southampton Hospital for breast cancer awareness month in October 2019. The film was shown on billboards in Times Square and online and managed to raise over £11,000. The diamond necklace was given to me to pass on to my daughter Joey.  

Since then, I have had many opportunities to tell my story and raise even more funds for charity including on my own social media where I tell all sides of the story about life with incurable cancer; the good, the bad and the ugly. I proudly raised over £2,000 during the UK lockdown by running a marathon in my living room; it took 8 hours and over 66,000 steps but I wanted to show the world that even in times of complete uncertainty, anything is possible.  

I receive messages every day from young women telling me they are now more aware of their own bodies and actually check for changes in their breasts which I am so pleased to see.  

However, the best messages I receive are from newly diagnosed cancer patients who have found my story and felt some hope that there can be life; a beautiful, happy life, for them too despite living with this cruel disease.  

For anyone diagnosed with cancer there are really scary times, extremely tough days and complete uncertainty about the future. But they are all of the things that are out of our control. All of the beauty we find in life after the diagnosis, all the drive to make a difference, all the love we have for the simplest things and the happiness we find just to be here; they are all choices. We cannot control cancer... but cancer cannot control us either."  

Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, Danielle. You inspire us every day!