Liz McEwan, 45, was diagnosed with breast cancer after deciding to have a boob job because she felt “flat-chested” – and her decision also saved her life a second time
When Liz McEwan hears Chumbawamba’s 1997 classic I get knocked down, but I get up again, every word resonates.
Just as whenever she sees Kylie Minogue strutting her stuff she smiles – feeling the warmth of sisterhood.
For, in October 2022, sick of her “tiny boobs” mum-of-two Liz, now 45, decided to have implants.
Her vanity saved her life … TWICE.
“I always had really tiny boobs, an AA cup and I didn’t feel feminine,” says Liz, of Wolverhampton, West Midlands.
“I’d been thinking about having implants for about 20 years. But I’d had my kids and wanted to do something for myself.”
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Liz, 45, now an English teacher, with a son, aged 7, and an 11-year-old daughter, booked to see a cosmetic surgeon and, as part of the process, in December 2022, she had a mammogram and then ultrasound to scan her breasts.
The mammogram was clear but, at the ultrasound, the radiologist suddenly became gravely concerned.
Liz, whose husband Nick, 45, is a contract manager for a commodities company, says: “As she looked at my second breast her face just totally changed and she started measuring something.
“She said ‘I can see something. This is definitely falling into the category where I want to do a biopsy immediately.’
“Then she saw another one (a tumour) and then another one. So there were three (tumours) in total.
“It was just awful. I said ‘Let’s do the biopsy’ and it happened then and there.”
Two days later, on 23 December, her cosmetic surgeon called.
“He said ‘I’m really sorry, your biopsy has come back showing it is breast cancer,” she explains. “The rug was pulled out from under me. He then said to me words I’ll never forget – ‘Your decision to have breast implants has saved your life. We are going to do surgery as soon as we can, but it’s not going to be implants, unfortunately, it’s going to be a mastectomy.’
“He reassured me by telling me, ‘I think you will be OK, but you might not have been.’
“He then referred me to an amazing breast cancer surgeon.
“I had a mastectomy on the right side, followed by a preventative mastectomy on the left, and full reconstruction on both sides.”
Told the breast cancer, while it had been caught early, was aggressive, she needed chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy.
This was the point when she started to really identify with Kylie.
Talking about the singer’s openness about her own breast cancer, which she had at 36 in May 2005, Liz, says: “Kylie said it was like a nuclear bomb going off in her body and that’s exactly what it was like for me.
“I thought, ‘People like Kylie don’t get breast cancer,’ but they do.
“I felt like that 1990s song, I get knocked down, but I get up again. And I did. There’s still life at the end of it all.”
Liz’s mastectomy revealed aggressive breast cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes.
“I realised it really could have killed me,” she says.
Following surgery, she was scheduled for six rounds of chemotherapy, five weeks of radiation and 14 rounds of targeted immunotherapy. But then a second life-threatening condition was discovered.
She explains: “They did a routine echocardiogram as standard, as the type of treatment I had could cause heart problems and they discovered I have a genetic heart condition called cardiomyopathy – a disease of the heart muscle.
“The doctor told me, ‘this has again saved your life because we have found it early and so we can work quickly, so it doesn’t put pressure on your heart. You will be absolutely fine.’
“My decision to have implants on the one hand opened up a whole can of worms, but on the other, it’s actually good as I’m here to tell the tale – as cardiomyopathy can be a ticking time bomb.”
Women are currently offered breast screening routinely on the NHS from the age of 50.
But Liz is speaking out as the NHS is trialling screening for women aged 30 upwards, which if rolled out nationally, she believes, will save lives.
Each year, more than 10,000 women who are younger than the routine screening age are diagnosed, with breast cancer being the most common cause of death among young UK women – with 2,000 dying each year – highlighted by the tragedy of Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding, who died, aged 39, in 2021.
And this week, singer Jesse J revealed she has been diagnosed with breast cancer, aged 37.
Liz says: “I was shocked – but also not shocked – to see that Jesse J was diagnosed this week, because it seems to be becoming so much more prevalent in young women. It really can happen to anyone.
“I remember reading about the diagnosis of Sarah Harding and feeling so sad for her, but never imagining it could happen to me, until it did.
“But there’s hope when you are diagnosed early.
“This is why it’s so important that screening for women is brought in much earlier than the age of 50.
“I know there’s pros and cons to screening and there’s an argument about the so-called ‘worried well,’ where over-screening can cause unnecessary concerns, but a lot of countries do screen from age 40 and I strongly believe the UK should too.
“It seems that – for whatever reason – and the research is still unclear – more and more young women are being diagnosed.
“We 100% need mammograms and screening younger.
“I now have regular check-ups for my heart as well and I take beta blockers while it continues to recover from the chemotherapy. But it’s all going in the right direction.”
Liz is now writing a book, which has the working title When Life Gives You Melons , to help people to understand the reality of cancer treatment. It also makes it clear that there is hope, no matter how dark things can seem.
She says: “Chemotherapy is so awful and there are quite a lot of influencers out there making it look almost glamorous.
“There’s a whole ‘chemo chic’ thing on social media of people looking great in leggings and putting on lip balm and taking selfies.
“I naively thought it was going to be like that for me. But the reality for most people is not sitting in designer leggings, it’s just hell, nausea and awful.
“In the book I use my experience as a lens through which to explore life – sometimes quite deeply and other times much more light heartedly.”
Incredibly grateful to be alive and quite happy with her body now, she says: “I’m really happy with my reconstruction. I have ended up with a B cup, very modest.
“But I’m now confident in my body and with my boobs. And I’m so grateful to be here.
“Physically I feel really good, my hair is growing back, I’m back in the gym and I am living life to the fullest.
“I am going to wear a swim suit on the beach this year with more confidence than ever. I’m just glad to be here.
“I never imagined that going for implants would lead to the discovery of three deadly tumours, and then a heart condition which also could have killed me.
“Going to have a boob job ended up saving my life twice!”
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