'My decision to have implants saved my life'

When Liz McEwan, 45, booked in for breast implant surgery, a series of serious health concerns were discovered

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When Liz McEwan hears Chumbawamba's 1997 hit Tubthumping, the lines, “I get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down” really resonate. Equally, whenever she sees Kylie Minogue strutting her stuff on stage, it makes her smile — feeling the warmth of sisterhood.

Because in October 2022, sick of her “tiny boobs” Liz, now 45, decided to get implants.

“I always had really tiny boobs, an AA cup, and I didn't feel feminine,” says Liz, an English teacher from Wolverhampton.

“I'd been thinking about having implants for about 20 years. I'd had my kids and wanted to do something for myself.”

Liz and husband Nick McEwan, a contract manager for a commodities company, have a daughter, 11, and a son, seven. Liz booked to see a cosmetic surgeon and, as part of the process, in December 2022, she had a mammogram and then an ultrasound to scan her breasts. The mammogram was clear but, at the ultrasound, the radiologist suddenly became concerned. “As she looked at my second breast, her face just totally changed and she started measuring something,” says Liz. “She said, ‘I can see something. This is definitely falling into the category where I want to do a biopsy immediately.’ Then she saw another one [a tumour] and then another one. So there were three tumours in total. It was just awful. I said, ‘Let’s do the biopsy’ and it happened then and there.”

The worst news

Two days later, on 23 December, her cosmetic surgeon called. “He said, ‘I’m really sorry, your biopsy has come back showing it is breast cancer,’” Liz recalls. “The rug was pulled out from under me. He then said to me words I’ll never forget - ‘Your decision to have breast implants has saved your life. We are going to do surgery as soon as we can, but it’s not going to be implants, unfortunately, it’s going to be a mastectomy.’