This month is Breast Cancer Care’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Twelve years ago, Minster resident Kay Doney became one of 46,000 people in the UK to be diagnosed with breast cancer every year.

The mother-of-two was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer two days before her 40th birthday in 1996.

She had felt tired and unwell and went to see a doctor who gave her antibiotics for an infection.

The swelling that had been in her breast seemed to go away, but she still didn’t feel right and insisted on seeing a consultant.

After having some biopsies Kay, now 52, found out she had breast cancer.

She said: “I think I knew he was going to say I had cancer.

“The first thing I asked was do I need a mastectomy?”

“I was stunned – I hadn’t had a lump. It’s quite a rare, nasty form of it and it’s not operable.”

Kay, who also has two step-children with her husband Glenn, was referred to an oncologist and had chemotherapy, which involved having a Hickman Line fitted, a surgical tube which means the drugs, which are in a little bag attached to the line, can go straight into the heart.

Kay said: “It was good to control my own medication – it allowed me to live as normal life as possible.”

After six months of chemotherapy, the cancer went into remission and Kay returned to her job at Kent Association for the Blind.

But the biggest shock was when it was recommended she have a mastectomy.

She was told the breast would be the primary area it would come back to, and if it did, it would come back with a vengance.

“Nine months after diagnosis, I had a mastectomy.

“I’d never met anyone who’d had one and it was one of the hardest decisions I’ve made.

“I never had a reconstruction – I have got used to my body image.”

It has been 12 years since Kay was first diagnosed.

She still takes tamoxifen, an anti-cancer drug which reduces the oestrogen level, and had to give up work because she suffered severe fatigue.

She added: “I chose to take early retirement and now I can pace my day.

“I wasn’t happy to do a job I didn’t feel I could do 100 per cent.”

Kay is positive about the future, and the experience has made her appreciate life more and realise that it is for living.

She said: “I never once thought why me. Why anyone?

“Life is precious, and a serious illness really brings it home.

“It really counts and none of us know quite what tomorrow brings.

“I wanted to live, I had everything to live for.

“I got married three years ago which is not something I would have expected.

“It taught me a lot and gave me an understanding of who I was and made me focus on what I want out of life.”

Kay’s most important advice is for people to know their own body and know if something doesn’t look right.

She had a mammogram following diagnosis which showed nothing.

She added: “I haven’t any history of it in the family and didn’t meet any of the criteria for high risk – it was just one of those things.

“People mustn’t be afraid to go and say I think something is wrong – I know people who left it and it’s been too late.

“We need to be prepared to shout if there’s someone not listening.

“Sometimes life takes us down a path we don’t want to go down – but it’s worth carrying on for.”

For more, see this week's Times Guardian