Inspirational Donna shares her journey after beating cancer during Covid-19
A mum-of-three who has recently finished treatment for breast cancer has documented her journey of undergoing treatment for a serious health condition during the pandemic on social media.
Donna Bloy was diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2020 and started an Instagram account to document not only her cancer treatment during Covid-19.
33-year-old Donna, who lives in Stretton, Burton, said that she first suspected something was wrong when she was weaning her youngest child off breast feeding.
She said: “I was breast feeding my youngest child and started to wean them off and noticed that one of my breasts wasn’t getting as full as the other so I felt it and that’s when I found a lump.
“I went to my GP and was then booked in for a biopsy and mammogram. It was shortly after this that I had a call from the breast clinic. They called me in for an appointment on 4 March and that’s when they told me I had breast cancer.
“It was such a strange time to be told I had cancer as the kids were at school and I was worried about them and the risks posed by Covid-19. I was worried about how I was going to tell them I was ill and how they’d take it. My whole world just exploded.”
Donna began the first of her eight rounds of chemotherapy in April and found the challenges that came with the rigorous treatment regime difficult, but social media was also having a negative impact on her mental health:
“The side effects from the first type of chemo, EC [which is named after the two types of drugs used – epirubicin and cyclophosphamide], were what I can only describe as the hangover from hell.
“I felt nauseous, dizzy, weak and tired. Half way through I was changed onto Docetaxel and that made me feel like I’d been hit by a bus. Everything ached. Bones I didn’t even know I had were aching, even between my fingers and toes hurt. It was really tough.”
Following her chemotherapy, Donna also had a single mastectomy before moving on to radiotherapy in December.
She continued: “It was really hard and there were some dark moments. The worst of these were when I’d go and sit and watch the kids sleeping and just cry. I was so scared that I’d never get to see them grow up and that they’d have to grow up without me.
“This was made worse by social media as everything on there was so negative. This is why I started my blog. I thought I either need to change the things people are seeing or get off social media entirely.”
Donna decided to document her journey to normalise the subject of cancer treatment and in a bid to help others through their treatment.
She said: “I wanted to post about things that I was going through so other cancer patients knew what to expect during their treatment. People have been really receptive of it and I’ve had some lovely messages which is great because it’s so important that we talk about and normalise these things.
“I will carry on the blog as I continue to recover. A lot of cancer patients say that once your contact with the hospital comes to an end, it’s like a light’s gone off and you can feel quite alone.
“My advice to anyone would be to just talk about everything and don’t bottle it up as it’ll just make you worse.”
Donna finished her course of radiotherapy on 9 December and wanted to thank the nursing team at Queen’s Hospital Burton and Royal Derby Hospital for everything they’ve done for her this year:
“Everyone at the hospital has been fantastic. I was treated at Queen’s Hospital Burton for the majority of the time, but I’ve had some treatment in Derby too and everyone’s just been great. I can’t thank them enough.
“The nurses even gave me a book to give to my children called ‘Mummy’s lump’. This was to help them understand what was going on and to help them get through it and to know what to expect.
“It’s been a strange time to have cancer during a pandemic, but the staff just got on with it. I would never have known I’d have been going through it during a health crisis.”