A hug from her mum changed everything for Selina Moss-Davies.
Selina, now 43, said she found a large lump on her breast in March 2011, but her doctor told her it was nothing to worry about. Then her mum, Pauline, felt the lump while hugging her and pushed Selina, then 28, to get a second opinion, booking her an appointment at a breast clinic.
The finance worker from Rochester, Kent, was later told the lump was a 38 millimetre aggressive grade three tumour. She was also told she was carrying the faulty BRCA1 gene mutation, which puts her at risk of developing other cancers including breast, ovarian and pancreatic cancers.
Selina said: “My mom would hug me and because of where the tumor was, it was quite high up on my breast, she could feel it through my t-shirt.
“There was nothing about it that concerned me but she actually went ahead and made an appointment without telling me. Thank God she did.
“I can’t think about what would have happened if my mom wasn’t this way.”
Selina, a mum of two, said she was not worried about the lump at first because she thought it was a fibroadenoma, a benign lump.
She said the seriousness of the situation did not hit her until June 2011, when she went to the Peggy Wood Breast Centre at Maidstone Hospital for the results of her biopsy.
There, doctors told her she had breast cancer and that she was carrying the faulty BRCA gene, which would put her at risk of getting other cancers in the future.
Selina said: “I just felt panic rising. He said it was breast cancer and I can’t even describe the feeling. It is like you have been rammed into a brick wall.
“I had never heard about this gene. I remember being gobsmacked that this even existed. It terrified me.
“I was very isolated. I was lucky I have an incredible support network, but I felt like I was on a planet by myself watching everybody else’s lives move on while I was frozen in time.”
At that meeting, she was also told her chemotherapy would start immediately and that it might mean she would never be able to have children.
It was possible to freeze her eggs, but that would have delayed treatment, which Selina said was not an option.
She had six rounds of chemotherapy and said she lost all her hair in the first week. She also lost her sense of taste and had fatigue, nose bleeds and extreme bone pain.
By her second session, she said the lump had shrunk to 80 millimetres.
Selina said: “Chemotherapy is terrifying but I just wanted to get in there and get going as quickly as possible.
“The fertility conversation was awful. I knew at some point I wanted to be a mom, I love children. I was heartbroken.
“There were dark times with this where I thought I wasn’t going to survive it. To question your mortality at 28 is a terrible thing.”
Four weeks after her final chemotherapy session in November, Selina had a nine-hour double mastectomy with immediate reconstruction.
Shortly afterwards, she was told she had a complete pathological response and was clear of cancer, which she now has been for 15 years.
Selina now has two children, Grayson, nine, and Gia, seven, with her husband Colin, who she has been married to for 11 years.
She has since had her implants replaced a few times, had a full hysterectomy in 2021, and is now on HRT to protect against the ovarian cancer risk. She said she feels very healthy overall.
Selina said: “It is something that I will always carry with me. There is always a risk and I am very aware of that, but I have found ways to cope. I don’t allow it to impede on my day to day life.
“It was important to me to get through this with a really good life ahead of me, not just exist. I am incredibly lucky.”
She is now taking part in Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life events with her friends and family, including her children. The family will be at the event in Maidstone again this year.
Selina said: “Race for Life is one of my favorite things to do. It raises lots of money for Cancer Research UK, who were at the forefront of the BRCA discovery that has changed things.
“I campaign for this kind of work because it needs to continue. I have children and it’s important to me that the next generation are protected.”
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