I WAS TOLD I HAD BREAST CANCER THREE YEARS AGO, NOW I'M RUNNING A HALF MARATHON'

WHEN mother-of-four Louise Horton was diagnosed with breast cancer, she wasn't sure if she would live to see the birth of her grandchild.

- SHAURYA SHAURYA Reporter

Now, three years later, she is taking part in today's Swansea Half Marathon, hoping to raise money for a charity which has been like an "extended family" to her own.

Louise, who is mother to Leon, 10, Lucy, 21, Chloe, 23, and Amy, 25, was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in 2022, a diagnosis which she said came as a "shock" to her.

After months of radiotherapy, chemotherapy and a mastectomy, she was declared "cancer-free".

Louise, who is a ward sister at Morriston Hospital in Swansea, said: "It was a shock. I'm a single mother of four children, and at the time, my daughter was pregnant, expecting my first grandchild.

"My main concerns were my children, and obviously how life would be... without me being in it and whether I would be around to see the birth of my grandchild."

Soon after her diagnosis, intensive treatment followed.

"Once I had my diagnosis, I had nine months of intensive chemotherapy on a weekly basis in Singleton Hospital here in Swansea,' Louise said.

"Then I had a full of mastectomy on the left-hand side and then after that, following my operation, I had to have three weeks of radiotherapy every day."

The treatment itself took a toll on the mum, so much so she found it difficult to do day-to-day tasks.

Louise said: "Obviously during the chemotherapy, which is not easy for anybody, your whole life is basically a routine of going back and forth to the hospital and things like that, feeling really tired, not being able to do what you would normally do.

"My son, my youngest, is only 10 and to take him to school, and to walk up a small hill, and day-to-day tasks were very, very, difficult.

"I'm quite an independent person and not to be able to do that, and relying really on my older children was very, very difficult for me.