Laura Larkin loved her new hair extensions, which made her brown hair reach just below her boobs.
After having a shower, the recruitment consultant was running her hands through the 18inches of extra hair when she felt something unusual.
There was a hard lump in her right boob, which she had never noticed before.
The lump turned out to be cancerous and Laura says her hair extensions saved her life.
Laura, from Livingston, West Lothian, Scotland, said: ‘My hair extensions at the time were really lovely and were long enough to reach the bottom of my boobs.
‘I’d just got out of the shower and I was running my fingers through my hair when I reached the ends of them and brushed past my breast.
‘I felt this really hard lump which I’d never noticed before at the bottom of my right breast.
‘I thought I was too young to have cancer.
She went to her GP two days later in May 2018, and while he thought it was fatty tissue, he sent her for a scan to be safe.
It uncovered abnormalities so a biopsy was done, and six days later she was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer.
‘I was in complete shock,’ she said.
‘I couldn’t believe what they were saying.
‘I was only 23 – how could this be happening to me?
‘As the lump was in a weird place under my breast, it’s not really somewhere that I would have felt it ordinarily if I wasn’t playing with my hair.
‘Considering I was booked in for a lumpectomy within a week of them diagnosing me with cancer and it had already progressed to Stage 3, it’s scary to think what could have happened to me if I hadn’t found it when I did.
‘I literally rang my hairdresser at WeaveDiva – Hair Extensions salon in Bathgate and told her that my hair extensions had saved my life!’
Laura underwent a lumpectomy on July 6 2018 where doctors removed a 9mm lump from her right breast.
By the time doctors removed the lump, her cancer had progressed from Stage 2 to an aggressive Stage 3.
Doctors managed to remove the entire lump before the cancer had spread and Laura was told she would attend yearly mammogram appointments.
But more than a year later – after being given the all clear – more lumps were uncovered in an equally unusually way.
She was taking a shower when it malfunctioned sending boiling water flowing her chest, leaving her with agonising second degree burns.
And days later when she was changing her dressings she found another lump – with a scan later revealing two more cancerous masses.
She’d had a mammogram in July 2019 showing no signs of the cancer returning but in November 2019, the accident with the shower led to more bad news.
She said: ‘I climbed into the bathtub and noticed the water was trickling down the back of the shower head rather than coming out normally.
‘I took it off the wall fixture to have a look and suddenly the hose completely separated from the shower head, throwing boiling hot water at the bottom of my breasts.
‘I screamed out and jumped back out of the bath, and the skin on my boobs was all red and hot and sore to touch.
‘I put some cream on it and thought I’d be ok, but the next day my skin was blistering and starting to fall off.’
She went to St John’s Hospital in Livingston and she was later treated for second degree burns and told to change her dressings herself at home.
As she placed a new dressing over her right breast, six days later on December 7 2019, Laura was stunned when she felt another lump.
Her doctor thought it was scar tissue from her lumpectomy, but scans revealed there were three new lumps.
Laura said: ‘The first time I found out I had cancer, it didn’t really hit me, it was dealt with so quick and I thought the cancer is gone, it’s over, I beat it.
‘The second time was just totally different, it was completely devastating.
‘I couldn’t help but feel like why me? Why have I got it a second time, it’s not fair?’
Gene tests revealed Laura was carrying the BRCA2 gene from her mother’s side – commonly known as the breast cancer gene.
Doctors advised that Laura would need to have a single mastectomy otherwise the cancer could spread or come back again and she had the surgery to remove her right breast on January 17 2020.
She added: ‘To lose a breast so young is so hard and at first I didn’t anybody knowing, I was scared of what people would think of me and what they would say if they knew.
‘I soon changed my mind though because I thought if people did know, maybe they would check themselves and then hopefully I can prevent other people going through this themselves.’
Tests have shown the cancer has not spread to her bones or vital organs but Laura has to wait until February 5 2020 to find out if it has spread to her lymph nodes.
She will have chemotherapy and radiotherapy before reconstructive surgery.
Laura said: ‘I knew that having the mastectomy was the best option for me but it really has affected my confidence.
‘I looked in the mirror after my mastectomy and I was horrified – tears were just streaming down my face, I thought I looked disgusting.
‘I’ve lost my breast so young and I’ve been left with this awful ugly life-changing scar.
‘I can’t have reconstructive surgery until all of the chemotherapy and radiotherapy is done as the treatment would damage the implant, so right now I’m just waiting.
‘I haven’t been able to be intimate with my partner since I was diagnosed for the second time, I just don’t feel like myself at the moment.
‘If sharing my story makes other women check their breasts, then maybe I can prevent someone else going through what I’m going through and save them from this pain.’
Do you have a story to tell about a health condition? Let us know at metrolifestyleteam@metro.co.uk.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/02/woman-25-says-hair-extensions-saved-life-helped-find-breast-cancer-12168764/
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