Renita, known as RMD in the Online Community, was diagnosed with invasive multifocal ductal and lobular breast cancer at 48. In this blog, she shares her diagnosis story, the challenges of treatment, and how the Macmillan Online Community became a source of support, hope and reassurance when she needed it most.
Cancer was not on my radar until my mum found a lump. In May 2025, during my morning call to my family in India, my sister says, “Now don’t panic but…”
“What’s happened?” I cry in full-blown panic, frantically googling flights to India.
My mum takes over, calm and unruffled. She is the matriarch of the family, our strength and rock. As usual, just hearing her voice makes me feel better, but what she says has me hyperventilating again. She has found a lump in her breast. It needs to be removed surgically, but the doctors are sure it is benign.
“The biopsy will prove it.” she says firmly. I panic just the same. In between searching for flights, I check my own breasts and find two lumps in my left breast.
“I check my own breasts and find two lumps in my left breast.”
In my 48 years, I have worried about contracting diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart disease, as all these run in the family. I have never once considered cancer, for there is no family history of it.
I am called in for my first mammogram within two weeks of seeing my GP. There are several other ladies in the waiting room, and we share smiles laced with anxiety. I do not realise then that I will soon become very intimate with this hospital. I will be up and down these stairs several times over the coming months, and I will look at the women waiting for mammograms and wish them well, sending good vibes their way, hoping that none of them are called back and told that it is bad news.
This was the last day before my life changed forever. I watch those other ladies leave, while I am called back repeatedly, first for another mammogram with a dye inserted, then for an ultrasound, then for a biopsy. As the morning rolls into afternoon and the waiting room empties until there’s just me left. I know something is wrong even as I cling desperately to the remnants of furious hope, which is dashed when I am called in and told by a kind nurse that the lumps look very suspicious and to bring someone with me when I return for the results of the biopsy.
“I know something is wrong even as I cling desperately to the remnants of furious hope.”
While I waited for the biopsy results to confirm my breast cancer diagnosis, and throughout my treatment, the Macmillan Online Community helped me keep going. I had a mastectomy with reconstruction, eight rounds of chemotherapy and fifteen sessions of radiotherapy. It was a hard time, and it felt rigorous and debilitating, but the support from the community stopped me from feeling alone and gave me the strength to get through it.
The community gave me hope. I met people who had been through breast cancer and come out the other side. They reminded me that things would get better and that I would get through it too. Even when I lost a breast, my hair, my confidence, my sense of who I was when looking in the mirror, and struggled to eat, sleep, find the energy to get out of bed, or cope with everyday life, they were there to support me.
“The online support from the wonderful Macmillan community is what keeps me from sinking underneath the weight of it all.”
Macmillan was on hand when my travel insurance was cancelled. At night when side effects keep me up, members of the Macmillan Online community are my companions and my heroes. They promised me that there is light at the end of the rainbow. The Macmillan community becomes my lifeline as in my own community, cancer is still a taboo. It evokes such fear and is seen as a death sentence.
'What did you do to cause it?' I am asked to try to understand why it happened to me. I get that. So I turn to the Macmillan community, who give valuable tips on how to deal with everything that is happening to me, who provide light during a very dark time. Who are all warriors, going through so much themselves and yet still turning up to commiserate and to cheer, to help me and others who are at our lowest.
“The Macmillan community became my lifeline as in my own community, cancer is still a taboo.”
With the support of and valuable advice from Macmillan’s Online Community, I finished active treatment, and my hair started to grow back. I still turn to the Macmillan community for help, tips and advice on managing side effects of hormone therapy and induced menopause. At the moment I want to give back. Helping those who are just embarking on one of the most challenging trails of their life. I am on hand to share tips and advice, to reassure. My advice would be: hang in there, we’ve been there, and we've got you.
We would like to thank Renita (RMD) for sharing her personal experiences with breast cancer and how the peer support from the Community helped her. Please show your support in the comment box below and leave Renita a supportive message or emoji. If, like Renita, you are affected by breast cancer, need support during the night or have Travel insurance issues, the following links may help.
