Alex Jansons

Who are you?

Hi. Hi everyone. My name is Alex Jansen's. I'm actually Daniel's sister, the younger version I, hobby wise, I am a keen netball player, play several times a week. I have family, two children, dog and cat, and I love the JAAQ platform.

How did you find out you had cancer?

So I found out I had cancer. Basically, I was in the hospital with my son. He was three months old. He had an internal abscess that he needed to have an operation on. So I was on my own in John Radcliffe Hospital. He had gone down for his operation under general anaesthetic. I was back up in the ward. It was absolutely freezing in there. It was in March, and I was sitting in the chair and I was rubbing my hands on my chest and had in my jumper because I was so freezing. And I always like to tell this story to everybody because kind of one of those situations where you feel something or you think you feel something and ignore it. I just had a baby. So anyway, I had my hands in my jumper. I was like rubbing, it was almost like on my chest really, rather than my breast. And most people think with breast cancer that it's like it has to be around your breast, but that's not correct. It can kind of come up onto your chest all the way up to your collarbone. Anyway, I was rubbing freezing, and I felt a really tiny, tiny, tiny little lump. The only way I can describe it, and again, this is what I always tell people, is feeling the top of a pen. Really, really tiny. And I had to kind of move around and I thought I'd felt something that I didn't. And I thought, oh, it must be like a milked duct or something. It was nothing. So just ignored it. My son had his operation. About three weeks later I was at home with my best friend and she was moaning that she had to go to the doctors. She had a high blood pressure. And I said to her and my mum, I said, oh, I've got this tiny little thing. And I really had to dig deep to feel it again and move around and lean to the side to try and feel it. And they were like, oh, I'm not sure. Don't think I can really feel anything. They said, well, to my best friend, you book the doctor's appointment for your blood pressure and you book a doctor's appointment just to get it checked. And I was like, oh, really? Do I have to do that? So we promised my mom that we both booked a doctor's appointment, which we did, and then I went for the checkup, and that's where my cancer journey started from that moment of that checkup, which was about a week later. So the point is it was absolutely tiny, really, really tiny. And never in a million years did I think it was anything at all. And I had to really dig deep and try and find it again once I'd felt it already.

How did you feel when you found out you had breast cancer?

So I got diagnosed during Covid. So when I went for my initial checkup, I was on my own drinking a hot chocolate, completely casual about the whole situation, never in a million years thinking anything was going to happen. And I had a mammogram. And then from the mammogram they took me into another room. Again, I still was so oblivious to anything that was going on. They took me into this other room, which was almost like a surgical room with all the lights off. And they put me on this bed and I then had three consultants in the room. And even at that point I was just a bit like still had my hot chocolate thinking, oh this is strange. Surely this can't happen to everybody. And then they scanned me, did an ultrasound after the mammogram and it kind of went a bit quiet and did the ultrasound and then the consultant said, would you mind if I did some biopsies? So I was like, okay, yeah, of course you can. So this was probably an hour later and there was another patient sitting outside the room that then started complaining because obviously that patient was very anxious. They were in the same situation that I was at that time, which I didn't realise. And then after that patient was complaining, I was thinking, this is strange. This can't be normal routine and they've delayed this other patient for an hour. Anyway, they did 16 biopsies at that time around my boob, my armpits, my other breast as well. Didn't say anything at that point. They patched me up. It didn't hurt either, by the way. The biopsy is not at all. It was actually fine. Patched me up. I left that room and I went back into the room with a consultant and I still had my cold hot chocolate at that point. Sat in the chair and actually at that moment, bear in mind, this was covid, so I was on my own. The guy, the consultant said, just wanted to let you know that there's a 90% chance that you've got breast cancer. And I just remember holding this hot chocolate with my mouth just dropping to the floor. I've got a three month old baby and a two and a half year old thinking. Then in my head also, I was thinking, oh, they've done 16 biopsies. This isn't great. That must be a lot of busyness going on in there. God, it makes me emotional. It was like A crazy moment. Instantly thought about my kids and to be honest, I actually thought I'm going to die. And the funny bit about the whole thing is they actually said after that, tell me to get you a taxi. And I thought, I can still drive. I, I'm still fine. I can drive. And it was so surreal because then I had to get in my car and I remember sitting in the car park sitting in my car thinking, who do I ring? I don't want to tell people over the phone, especially my mom or anything. That was just awful. And I was driving home and all I did actually when I was driving home is I called my husband and said, please, you need to come home. By the time I'd got home, Andy had pulled up at the same time as me and I walked into the house and it's really weird because my mum was actually at home and they obviously knew where I was going, what I was doing, and I didn't actually need to say anything. I just walked into the house and look like I do now. And it was a lot. And at that point you dunno how bad it is or what's going to happen, and you've been plunged into this world of unknown that you have no idea about any of it. Yeah. How did I feel? That's how I felt.

Were you scared when you found out you had breast cancer?

Did you tell your children about your breast cancer?