AFTER months of gruelling chemo, a sepsis scare and the loss of her gorgeous shoulder-length hair – Liz da Silva finally heard the words she'd longed for.
She was cancer free.
The mum-of-one, 46, screeched with happiness down the phone to her boyfriend, and was relieved that her son, 15, wasn't going to be left without his mum.
Yet, that taste of remission was only to last for a fleeting moment.
Just two weeks later, in a cruel twist of fate, Liz was given the devastating news she feared the most – her cancer had returned.
The hotel events manager underwent more agonising treatment as well as a double mastectomy – and against all odds, she is cancer-free once more.
Liz, from Herne Bay, Kent, is now sharing her story in a bid to give other sufferers hope – even during the darkest of times.
She said: "I want to reassure other people who are going through cancer, that there is life after cancer, chemo, treatment and surgeries.
"I want to tell them: 'You will get back to normality, it’s just that you will have a new normal. You will be a new you. Be patient. Be strong. Life can and will get better'."
Liz first suspected something was wrong when she was having a cuddle with her new partner Chris, 55, last year.
In an exclusive interview, she told The Sun Online: "Chris was my soulmate, the person who made me happier than I’d ever been before.
"But sadly within a year we were to have our love tested.
"On Good Friday, in March 2018, Chris and I both had a day off work.
"We were having a cuddle when he said: 'I can feel something funny in one of your breasts.'
"I had a feel, too, and realised there was a disc-shaped lump in my right breast the size of a ten pence piece, that I hadn’t noticed until now."
There was a disc-shaped lump in my right breast the size of a ten pence piece, that I hadn’t noticed
At first Liz dismissed the lump as a minor injury she'd got at salsa dancing the night before.
However, to be on the safe side, she decided to make an appointment to get it checked out.
There her GP, a female doctor, said it was likely the lump was just a cyst given she had no family history of breast cancer.
Liz added: "The doctor continued that normally she would ask me to wait a little while, then return if the lump was still present.
"But this time, because she was about to head off for a long holiday, she decided to refer me to the hospital immediately, just in case.
"I strongly believe that in doing so, she saved my life."
On April 16 2018, Liz had a mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy, all on the same day at Kent and Canterbury Hospital.
And a week later, she was given her devastating diagnosis.
Liz said: "I returned for the results to be told that it wasn’t a cyst. I had breast cancer.
"It was such a shock. If I wasn’t sitting down at the time I’d have fallen down to the floor.
"I remember being scared, wondering who was going to look after my son if I died, and feeling that it was unfair that after finally finding happiness with Chris, it had just been snatched away by such terrible news.
"Chris was with me for my appointment – he was in total shock, too.
"Now I had to go home and tell Jack I had breast cancer.
"I talked it over with Chris and we felt he was old enough to hear the truth.
"In any case, I’m not a very good liar – he’d have known something was wrong.
"How I didn’t dissolve in floods of tears as I broke the news to my son, I don’t know.
"But somehow I managed to explain things to him in a calm, reassuring manner.
"Jack kept asking: 'Mum, are you going to die?' I didn’t know the answer. But of course, I told him that I wasn’t.
"It’s always easier to convince others rather than yourself."
By May 2018, test results revealed that Liz had triple negative breast cancer.
"That was the day it truly sank in that I actually had a life-threatening disease, and that I was about to face the biggest unknown of my life", Liz said.
"I remember breaking down, feeling there was no way I was strong enough to cope with what lay ahead.
"Chris just hugged me for ages, until I felt a bit better. I’d never been so grateful for the love and support of my boyfriend as I was on that awful day."
I remember breaking down, feeling there was no way I was strong enough to cope with what lay ahead
Liz was then given a gruelling treatment plan, involving 16 rounds of chemotherapy to shrink the lump.
During her first session, she had a bad reaction, developed sepsis and had to be admitted to hospital.
She said: "I felt so vulnerable and scared in hospital on my own. I’d never really been ill before.
"My only memory of being in hospital was having my tonsils out when I was seven years old."
Liz then faced more heartache – as 13 days after her first chemo, her shoulder-length hair started falling out.
She had decided against the cold cap, as it didn’t guarantee saving her hair and at the time she didn’t "have the heart" to go through any more treatments.
Liz said: "I was getting upset by finding clumps of my hair all around our home, but from somewhere I found the strength to shave my own head.
"I bought a wig so close to my natural hair it made my best friend, Nicola, cry when she saw me.
"But sadly I’d been sold the wrong size – it was too big for my head.
"Luckily my hospital’s wig service adviser helped me fix the problem. I also bought a shorter wig for the summer months."
As time passed, Chris moved in with Liz and her son to support the family.
However, she still felt "weak" and suffered from extreme nausea and "unbearable" body pain.
She said: "I felt I was existing inside a bubble, simply going through the motions of life, week after week. "Having no option but to do as I was told.
"There were times when only love and support from Chris and my family got me through."
Finally, in August 2018, Liz was given some good news following an ultrasound and mammogram to monitor her progress – the cancer had gone.
How to check for breast cancer
Step one: Begin by looking in a mirror, facing it with your arms on your hips and your shoulders straight. You should be looking for any dimpling, puckering, bulging skin, redness, soreness, a rash or changes in the nipple.
Step two: Still looking in the mirror, raise both arms above your head and check for the same changes.
Step three: With your arms still above your head, check for any fluid coming from the nipples. This can include milky, yellow or watery fluid, or blood.
Step four: While lying down use your opposite hand to check each breast. Using a few fingers, keeping them flat and together, go in a small circular motion around your breasts. Make sure you feel the entire breast by going top to bottom in these small circles. It helps to develop a system or pattern to make sure every inch is covered. Use light pressure for the skin and tissue just beneath, medium pressure for the tissue in the middle of your breasts, and firm pressure to feel the tissue at the back, feeling down to your ribcage.
Remembering the happy moment, Liz said: "I went to that appointment alone, as Chris was in Cyprus for his son’s wedding.
"I remember ringing him to tell him my news.
"The treatment had to continue, but at that point I didn’t care. I was going to be OK."
Liz was so grateful to the nurses who had looked after her she gave them the scissors they needed to open the chemo bags on the ward.
She said: "It had become an ongoing joke in the ward.
"So now I bought each nurse a pair of scissors and attached their names with ribbon. Hopefully it was a useful gift."
Despite this, Liz was soon given a setback when the results of a genetic test, taken many weeks earlier, came through.
She had tested positive for the PALB2 genetic disorder which meant her breast cancer was very likely to return.
Now instead of a lumpectomy after treatment, doctors advised Liz to have a double mastectomy to prevent her cancer spreading.
In December 2018 – much to her relief – Liz had her final chemo treatment.
She was finally told she was in remission.
But, just two weeks later, she had an ultrasound to check all was well, before her approaching mastectomy surgery.
And she was given the news she most dreaded – her cancer was back.
Liz said: "My heart sank when doctors told me that a 9mm shadow was visible.
"It was in the same spot as before and therefore most likely to be the original cancer, not a new one.
"I was devastated. Yet another heartache to deal with.
"Being told not to worry as I about to have remove my breasts, didn’t make that news any easier to deal with."
Liz's double mastectomy and reconstruction was performed at the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital, Margate, on January 29, 2019.
The outside skin of her breast was retained while the inside tissue was removed and replaced with implants.
She added: "The months that followed were very difficult for me.
"The different pains I felt brought back the fear of the unknown. Some days I even regretted the surgery.
"How I longed for the whole experience to have been a bad dream."
Liz needed another operation in July 2019, to replace one of her implants after problems developed.
But just two weeks after that, she felt well enough to return to work, with the help of her colleagues.
Liz said: "From the start, my work colleagues had supported me and been with me in this chapter of my life.
"They enabled me to continue working from home throughout my treatment which helped me by keeping my mind occupied while my body endured the chemo. I’m so grateful to them.
"However, I found it quite hard to return to actually going in to work at the hotel each day, as I was still very tired.
"But since then each day has been getting easier."
Liz is now in remission from cancer and "feeling well and thinking positive".
Looking back at the past 17 months, Liz said: "I sometimes find it hard to believe I went been through such pain and sadness and survived.
"For that, I am very proud of myself.
"During my treatment, when I lost all of my hair and put on three stone in weight, I wondered if I’d ever again look in the mirror and smile. The answer is yes – I can. I do.
"My hair has regrown all curly, and that makes me happy, because I have always wanted curly hair.
"I’ve been told many times that I look younger now than I did before 16 rounds of chemo and two surgeries.
"My next goal is to return to my beloved salsa dancing with Chris, and to enjoy a family holiday with him and my son."
Liz is now supporting Breast Cancer Awareness Month and says she will be forever indebted to the NHS for the "wonderful" treatment she received.
She said: "At every stage, I always felt that I was listened to and treated with respect."
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