A mum of two thought her life could begin again after receiving treatment for breast cancer, but then she was given a devastating diagnosis after her symptoms were initially dismissed as vertigo
A mum who thought she’d beaten cancer was devastated to find it had returned- after her symptoms were repeatedly brushed off as vertigo.
Carrie Howard, 43, rang the bell in 2023 after being given the all-clear from triple-negative breast cancer following months of chemotherapy, a mastectomy and radiotherapy.
At the time, scans from her neck down showed no sign of disease and the receptionist from Wigan, Greater Manchester, thought “life could begin again.”
But nearly two years later, in December 2024, Carrie started suffering from headaches and dizziness. She visited her GP three times, but each time she was told it was vertigo and sent away with tablets.
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Her symptoms worsened and she took herself to A&E at Wigan Hospital in February, where doctors revealed her cancer had not only returned but had spread to her brain, progressing from stage three to stage four.
“When I rang the bell thinking I had beaten cancer, it felt like a weight lifted and life could begin again,” Carrie told PA Real Life. “We thought the chemo had mopped up cancer anywhere else in the body and I was cancer-free.
“But the brain tumour was there all along. It was very hard having to sit the boys down again and say ‘mummy has to go through more treatment’. If I knew at the time, I would have had a private MRI scan to check my entire body.”
Carrie first found a pea-sized lump in her left breast in July 2022 while putting on her pyjamas. An MRI scan at Wigan Hospital confirmed it was stage three triple-negative breast cancer – a fast-spreading and aggressive type and that it had already reached her lymph nodes.
“It was a shock,” she said. “I thought they would run some tests and send me home but they said the chemo would mop it up and rid me of it.
“It was brutal – I lost my hair, my eyelashes, my eyebrows but I could see the light at the end of the tunnel and was fighting to beat it.”
In January 2023, she had a mastectomy and underwent radiotherapy. A follow-up scan three months later showed no signs of cancer, and she rang the bell in celebration.
“It felt worth it,” she said. “We’d put our lives on hold and now it was over.”
She slowly returned to normal life, going back to work, cheering her sons on at football training and enjoying a family holiday in Turkey.
But in December 2024, Carrie started getting headaches, veering to the right when she walked and feeling as though she might collapse.
Despite three GP visits and prescriptions for vertigo, she returned to A&E, where an MRI scan revealed a shadow on her brain. “Doctors did an MRI and then took us into a separate room and told us there was a shadow on the scan,” she said.
Further scans confirmed that her triple-negative breast cancer had travelled to her brain before the chemo and had managed to survive the treatment.
The brain is protected by a blood-brain barrier, which stops harmful substances and in some cases chemotherapy from getting through.
Doctors diagnosed Carrie with stage four metastatic brain cancer. She had a seven-hour operation to remove a large tumour, followed by targeted radiotherapy to shrink a second, smaller growth.
Now, the family is waiting for results to find out whether she is finally cancer-free.
Her husband James, 43, a sales manager, said: “We’re hoping that it’s all been removed and that Carrie gets to ring the bell again. But we also have an anxiety of whether it will come up somewhere else.
“Carrie still has a lot of fight in her but you can only withstand so much in one go.”
The family is now researching alternative treatments and clinical trials both in the UK and abroad.
James added: “Wigan Hospital has only treated two other people who had triple-negative cancer that moved to the brain so the data just isn’t there. We don’t know what comes next so we need to be prepared.”
Carrie’s best friend, Rebecca van der Lee, 41, has set up a GoFundMe which has already raised £17,540 to help fund future treatments.
A charity night with live music and karaoke will be held at The Farmers Arms in Bispham, Lancashire, on June 6 to help raise even more.
“The support has been amazing, it’s just incredible,” Carrie said. “Friends are giving support and everyone is rallying together.”
Carrie and her family are raising awareness around secondary cancers, lump checks and the need for more full-body scans when cancer spreads to lymph nodes.
A link to Carrie’s GoFundMe can be found here.
