LET ME DIE ON MY TERMS

Sophie Blake, 52, wants to be remembered with a smile on her face

- CLARE SWATMAN, KIM WILLIS.

Toes tapping and hips wiggling, I grabbed my daughter Maya and we spun round to the sound of ABBA's Dancing Queen.

It was November 2020 and me and Maya, then 13, loved a kitchen disco - dancing while making dinner or doing the washing-up. Apart from playing on the Wii, it was our favourite lockdown activity, just the two of us.

But now, as I twirled around, I felt a dull ache in my left breast. I'd had it for a few weeks and put it down to running.

Then a few days later, I rolled over in bed and felt a strange sensation of something moving deep inside the breast tissue.

I'd never felt anything like it before, so the next day, I went to see my GP.

'It's probably the menopause,' she said. 'But I'll send you for a mammogram just in case.'

Reassured, two weeks later, when I went to the breast clinic, I went alone, but after a mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy, the consultant took me aside.

'I'm so sorry, but I'm certain you have breast cancer,' he said. I couldn't speak as I tried to process the word cancer and what that meant for my future. Walking back home in a daze, I rang my mum Christine, then 68, and told her everything.

'I don't want to tell Maya yet,' I said, wanting to know my official diagnosis and prognosis first.

'That's probably for the best,' Mum agreed and I could hear her holding back tears.

A few weeks later, just before Christmas, I went back to the clinic, while Mum came to stay with Maya. There, the consultant confirmed my worst fears.

'It's stage 2 breast cancer, and aggressive,' he said. 'We need to treat it immediately.'

STARTING TREATMENT