WELL FIGHT THIS TOGETHER

January 09, 2023

WOMAN'S OWN

(indy Walker, 35, is undergoing cancer treatment alongside her three-year-old daughter

When my daughter was born, I imagined all the wonderful things we’d do together. Dressing up, playing with dollies, going on shopping trips and girls’ days at the spa. Instead, I found myself fighting for my life, hooked up to machines and undergoing chemotherapy, while my precious little girl was also fighting for hers.

In early 2020, I was checking Facebook when I noticed a message from a name that I didn’t recognise. ‘I think I’m your cousin,’ it read. Explaining she lived in Canada, she said she was related to my dad’s side of the family. Rather than researching her family tree, she’d got in touch with important news. ‘There is a cancer gene mutation that runs in the family, you may want to get yourself checked,’ she said.

I was shocked, but knew it wasn’t something I could ignore. As a wife to Anthony, then 37, and mum to Lily, two, I needed to know if I was at high risk of developing cancer. Ten years earlier, my dad, Kenneth, had been diagnosed with a sarcoma on the left-hand side of his chest. Thankfully, the cancer was treatable and, after undergoing radiotherapy, he’d been healthy ever since.

But the message explained that the TP53 gene mutation that ran in our family can cause cancer cells to grow and spread anywhere in the body, and that there was a 50/50 chance of inheriting the mutated gene from someone who is a carrier.

GENE TEST

I contacted my doctor and, eventually, Dad’s blood was genetically tested. He was found to be a carrier and it meant there was a 50% chance I was too. Dad was understandably upset, but he was more concerned about what it meant for me.