MP vows to keep working despite her cancer ‘blow’

A NORTH Wales MP who has been diagnosed with breast cancer has vowed to keep working through her treatment.

- BY RUTH MOSALSKI

Claire Hughes, the Labour MP for Bangor Aberconwy, felt a lump in her armpit during the summer and went to her GP.

After being diagnosed with cancer, she had an operation last week and is now awaiting further tests.

Ms Hughes chose to tell people about her diagnosis and has released a video via social media saying she wanted to be open with people but also encourage any woman who finds a lump to get it checked.

She said she felt pain, and then a lump in her armpit when MPs were on their summer break, and despite there being no history of breast cancer in her family, her mother died aged 63 from lung cancer, and she went to get it checked.

She went to her GP and was sent to her local hospital, Ysbyty Gwynedd, where she’s been having treatment since.

Now recovering from an initial surgery, she expects she will need radiotherapy and chemotherapy, she said.

Since cancer was confirmed, she said she has focused on the practical things she can do: “I think I've just got to focus on the practicality of it. I don’t think I have any other way of doing it.

“I have to try not to worry about what I don’t know. So I need to wait for my results and then see what happens,” she said.

She’s now waiting for the tests to tell her what type of cancer it is, whether it has spread or what the next treatment will be.

“There's no point in me worrying about that until I get to that point,’ she said.