Fortunately, Aly had been zealous about breast cancer screening and her cancer was detected at Stage 1. It was a small 0.5cm lump in her right breast, and Aly was guardedly optimistic.
“At the start, I was all positive self-talk. I said to myself, ‘I’m a fitness professional, I can do this. I’m going to show the world that I’m a warrior,” she said.
“But the actual journey hit me like a tonne of bricks. It was so much harder than I’d ever envisioned,” she admitted.
INFECTIONS FROM THE BREAST RECONSTRUCTION IMPLANTS
It began as a simple lumpectomy to remove the tumour. However, her doctors could not find clear margins and suggested a mastectomy to remove her entire right breast. Because of Aly’s family history of breast cancer, she decided to remove both breasts, even the one that did not have a tumour.
She then underwent reconstruction using breast implants before proceeding to do chemotherapy.
Little did she expect to get infections from the breast implants.
“That was far worse than my chemotherapy. They had to take out the implant on my right, wash it up and put it back in. Then, my left implant also got infected. So they did three surgeries to wash the implants in total.
“My doctor said I was probably the unluckiest cancer patient in terms of reconstruction that they’d ever had,” she said.