Exclusive:
Three of the nine inspirational women, Antonia, Jackie and Claire, who have taken part in a ground-breaking in podcast, Sex And The Titty, reveal how breast cancer has affected their love lives
Not expecting to find cancer aged just 39, Antonia Diggle wasn’t even sure what she’d felt on the top of her breast was even a lump “It was more of a ridge shape,” explains Antonia, a commercial interior designer from Oldham, Greater Manchester.
Now 46, the mum-of-two says, “My mammograms hadn’t started yet but within two weeks I was sent for a biopsy and that day I was told I had Stage 3 HER2 breast cancer. I had every treatment thrown at me. Four different chemos, a lumpectomy followed by 26 radio therapies. Then drugs for five years to shut my ovaries down.”
Antonia recalls how breast cancer stripped her of all femininity. “Hair gone, eyelashes gone, breasts gone. Then to top it off, libido went too, and I started sweating in the middle of the night.
“Sex was painful for me and my husband Damien was scared to death of coming near me because he could see the pain in my eyes.
“You just don’t feel like your body is your own. If you can’t love yourself, how do you expect your partner to?”
Diagnosed with breast cancer on Christmas Eve in 2018, Jackie Knutton kept the news from her three children and husband Rob until Boxing Day. “I kept looking around at them knowing I’d been diagnosed and they didn’t know. When I broke the news, they were so scared,” says Jackie.
Jackie, 59, who lives Bowden, Cheshire, says, “They found four tumours in my breast during a routine mammogram when I was 53. I had a single mastectomy and a reconstruction at the same time.”
Jackie came off HRT and was put on Tamoxifen which caused vaginal atrophy. “It was painful to even walk, so I was given topical oestrogen. All women over 40 should be on it – my mum’s on it and she’s 82!”
Jackie reveals the strain caused her and her husband to split. “My husband can’t talk about sex at the best of times,” she laughs. “He couldn’t cope and I was mourning the loss of my previous self. But in fact, it was always there – it just needed relighting. Happily we got back together.”
Although Claire Spragg and her husband Paul recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, she reveals they no longer enjoy the same intimacy.
“When having chemo, the nurses did once ask, “Are you using contraception?’ But I told them, ‘No – we’re definitely not doing anything like that,’” admits the 48-year-old from Northwich, Cheshire.
“We kiss and cuddle but physically it’s been very painful to have sex since I had a hysterectomy before they found breast cancer.”
The mum-of-two was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in April 2021. She had annual mammograms as her grandma was also diagnosed with breast cancer at 44. “My tumour was 11mm in the scan – by the lumpectomy it was 22mm and right at the back, so I would never have found it until it killed me.
“I had the implants but no nipples. It’s totally changed my sexuality and has really affected the relationship, but we still love each other.”
• Sex And The Titty podcast goes live on February 14 boobee.co.uk/sex-and-the-titty
