Surviving breast cancer: ‘It wasn’t curable anymore, it was treatable’
Vanessa Pontes: “I genuinely didn’t think it was anything much, but when I got to Brazil, the lump started bothering me — it was growing quickly and there was pulling of the skin.”
Vanessa Pontes was never sure she would recognise a worrying lump in her breast. But, taking a shower after work one February afternoon last year, the Dublin-based IT worker was in no doubt.
“It was so big I was like: ‘Whoa! What is that?’
“I was in shock. My blood pressure literally dropped.”
An online search reassured her that the soft, movable, round lump in her left breast was probably a cyst and nothing to worry about.
Her GP thought similarly but, just to be sure, referred the then 34-year-old to the breast care clinic.
There would be a wait for the clinic appointment and Pontes, who had not been back home to Brazil in two years, was due to travel there around that time.
“I genuinely didn’t think it was anything much, but when I got to Brazil, the lump started bothering me — it was growing quickly and there was pulling of the skin.”
She consulted with a doctor who also thought it was a cyst, and said she had two options: “Leave it and it would disappear, or he could remove it.”
She opted for removing it, the doctor asked if she minded medical students watching the procedure, she said she didn’t.
The mood in the surgery was light-hearted, the doctor even making jokes.
“But when he did an ultrasound of the lump, he stopped smiling. He said it was a bit more complex.
“He asked the students to leave the room and took a biopsy.”
A week later, the results confirmed Pontes had cancer.
“I was really angry, just so angry. It was two years since I’d been in Brazil, and I come with this problem. Everybody thinks ‘why me’, but I was really ‘why me?’ I’m young, fit, I don’t drink or smoke, there’s no history of breast cancer in my family,” says the now 36-year-old, who cut short her trip to Brazil and returned to Dublin.
Following a gamut of tests at the Beacon Hospital, it was confirmed she had invasive ductal carcinoma in her left breast.
“It was hormone-negative and HER2 positive.”
She also had calcifications in her right breast.
“I was having a lot of pain in my left shoulder. I knew breast cancer can spread to the bone, so they did a test.
“Thankfully, I didn’t have it in the bone.”
Assigned to an oncologist, further tests showed lesions in her liver.
“It wasn’t clear whether they were cancerous, and a biopsy wasn’t an option due to their location. But [the doctors said] it was highly suspicious of cancer, so I was diagnosed with stage four, metastatic cancer. It wasn’t curable anymore, it was ‘treatable’ — the aim to prolong life.
“It was horrible, the worst thing ever, for someone to tell you you’re going to die.
“My partner Amy and I have been married for only three or four years. We had so many plans — to travel the world, take a gap year, buy a house. Everything just stopped.”
With the cancer described as “aggressive and growing fast”, Pontes immediately began 12 weeks of Taxol and Herceptin chemotherapy.
“I was able to live a somewhat ‘normal’ life. My hair fell out, so I shaved it off, which was liberating because it was difficult to see it fall out.”
A post-treatment scan brought the hugely welcome news that the cancer in her breast was “completely gone — 100%”. But her liver remained unchanged.
“The doctor said: ‘You’re young, your body’s strong – we’re going to go at this aggressively’. That’s when I started very aggressive chemo. It was supposed to be every two weeks, four rounds. It took way longer.
“They had to reduce the concentration because it was too strong for me. I got a blood clot, infections. It was very tough.
“After treatment, I got test results including double sentinel node biopsy results, showing no evidence of disease in my body. Amy and I hugged each other; it was the first time we cried with happiness. That was last November.”
While doctors suggested a single mastectomy, Pontes opted for a double.
“Through the whole process, I’d got very annoyed with my breasts, like ‘you betrayed me’.
“For me, breasts are aesthetic. I don’t have kids, and I appreciate my life more than a couple of breasts. After the surgery, I got the good news that the margins were clear.”
Currently, Pontes has infusions of Herceptin every three weeks and is scanned every three months.
Describing herself as living well with metastatic breast cancer, she is an ambassador for Breast Cancer Ireland’s Breast Cancer Know More campaign, which marks Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
A survivor-led campaign, it puts survivors bravely into the spotlight, where their voices, stories, and bodies demonstrate the importance of checking for breast cancer’s eight signs and symptoms — thereby driving home the life-saving message of early detection.
Annually in Ireland, more than 3,700 women are diagnosed with breast cancer.
One in seven women (one in 738 men) will develop the disease in their lifetime.
It remains the most common cancer here, and includes a rising number of diagnoses in younger women. Breast cancer doesn’t discriminate and can affect women — and men — of all ages.
BREAST Cancer Ireland CEO Aisling Hurley says: “More people are surviving breast cancer year on year.
“Breast cancer makes up 22% of all cancer survivors in Ireland. But we’ve so much more to do, to reach a point where nobody is lost to this awful disease.”
Pontes recalls the moment she heard she had metastatic breast cancer.
“My life changed in that moment — the worst moment of my life. Reading and listening to stories of other survivors gave me so much hope, it still does. I know my cancer can’t be cured, but I can use my voice to make sure others don’t end up where I am. We don’t think it’s going to happen to us. It could happen at any time to anyone, no matter the age.”
And, while last year was tough, Pontes says good things happened too.
“I’m in Ireland 10 years and my parents came over for the first time — that was amazing. And Amy and I got a house. We’ve been working on that for the last year. We also got a dog … Life does find a way to continue.”
- For more on this campaign and the signs and symptoms to be aware of, see breastcancerknowmore.ie
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