Defiance

Photo credit: Ami Barwell for Stand Up To Cancer Defiance – what does that mean to you? One dictionary definition is: proud and determined opposition against authority. To me it means challenging the norm, being brave enough to speak up for myself. Ami Barwell’s Defiance exhibition for Stand Up to Cancer shows the gritty and …

Flat in Piccadilly Circus

#ShowUs in London - a topless image of my flat torso, showing my mastectomy scars appears in Piccadilly Circus. May was a very exciting and surreal month for me. Project #ShowUs arrived in London and my topless image featured on some of the biggest billboards in the capital. The gift that keeps giving is how …

#ShowUs more women who look like me

My reflections on being a topless model in Times Square, following my double mastectomy treatment for breast cancer. Yesterday a photo of me went up on a billboard in Times Square, New York, alongside nine photos of other women. It’s going to stay there for two weeks. I think that’s pretty remarkable. But what is …

Horror vs Happiness

Nearly three years ago I had my first mastectomy. My left breast was removed because a seven centimetre tumour had taken up residence in my GG cup. Despite having had a lumpectomy three weeks previously, the tumour was too large and too dispersed and so the whole breast had to go. Being told that I …

Weather report

At the weekend, Facebook reminded me that I started this breast cancer blog a year ago. When I wrote the first post, I had no idea what reaction I’d get – if any! I had no idea how blogs worked...and even less about search engine optimisation. I still haven’t worked that out and it did …

Choices, choices, choices

Today I had the amazing, but surreal, experience of being the subject of the number 1, most watched video on the BBC News website. As ever, I was topless and talking about why I'm happy living flat. The video was a follow up to another first for me - broadcasting live on a national radio …

Living without breasts

Being back in hospital for a non-cancer operation recently, prompted me to think about my body and how it has changed over the last two and a half years following my breast cancer diagnosis. I’ve acquired another scar, this time high up on the side of my right buttock, to add to the two across …