Tickled Pink has helped to fund Breast Cancer Care’s services for women and men living with a diagnosis of secondary breast cancer. Their helpline, ‘Living with Secondary Breast Cancer’ courses, online support and publications (all free of charge) provide expert support at any time.

Secondary breast cancer, where breast cancer cells have spread to another part of the body, is incurable but can be treated, sometimes for years.

Frances, 48, from Bookham, found Breast Cancer Care’s secondary services a great support after her secondary diagnosis in October 2009.

She said: “I came to the Living with Secondary Breast Cancer group at Breast Cancer Care’s offices in London and it was amazing meeting up with people who had secondary breast cancer too. There was such a range there, people who had been living with it for some time, people who, like me, had just been diagnosed. It ran over two days and was very supportive as everyone was so positive.”

Frances, who is mum to twin boys, Oliver and Elliot, now 14, and two older stepsons, Michael and Nick, was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer ten years after her initial primary diagnosis.

She said: “I was first diagnosed when the twins were just a year old. Instead of seeing in the Millennium by celebrating with family and friends, I was at home recovering from an operation with my head stuck firmly down the toilet having undergone chemotherapy days before! At each regular check up over the ten years that followed, I gained confidence to put the breast cancer diagnosis behind me and get on with my life. But a new nightmare began in 2009 when I found another lump in the same breast. This time though it was a diagnosis of secondary breast cancer.”

Being diagnosed with breast cancer at an early age can leave a lot of young women not only having to come to terms with having the disease but also worrying about whether or not they will be able to have children in the future. Aged only 29 Carly Gibson, who lives near Bristol, found a small lump, and was diagnosed with ER+, HER2+ breast cancer.

“My world was absolutely ripped apart. I was nearly 30 and I had cancer – everything was awful. I dealt with having cancer because the fear of not having any children was much worse. That seemed more hopeless than the cancer coming back.”

Carly’s doctors recommended leaving five years after being treated for breast cancer before getting pregnant to make sure it had been successful. For Carly this would mean waiting until her late 30s to have children. Doctors also recommended chemotherapy – which can affect fertility.

After discussion with her family and her doctors, Carly decided not to have chemotherapy but agreed to have extra radiotherapy. Carly met Chris Gibson in May 2005. The couple were married in October 2007 and, before their honeymoon, Carly saw her oncologist, as she wanted to start a family.

Doctors were unsure how Carly’s body would react to having a baby and were seriously concerned the cancer could come back. But Carly weighed up the risks and by the time she and Chris returned from their honeymoon, she was pregnant. Carly nervously agreed to have a mammogram soon after she gave birth to her daughter, Lydia. Thankfully, she was clear – the cancer hadn’t come back.

Beverly Spence, 53, from Caerphilly, had breast cancer twice in four years. Beverly contacted Asda to ask if we sold specially-fitting lingerie for women who have had a mastectomy. Since then, Beverly has helped design and fit Asda’s range of post-surgery bras and swimwear.

Beverly said: “I’m absolutely thrilled that I’ve achieved what I initially set out to do – and that was to introduce a bigger range of post-surgery bras into all the Asda stores for those people who are unable to access internet sites to purchase or cannot afford the over-priced garments on sale at some other stockists.”

Beverly, who is married to Robert and has two children Michael, 29 and Laura, 19, had a lumpectomy after developing breast cancer. She responded well to chemotherapy and radiotherapy but when she went for a routine mammogram doctors found she had a new breast cancer in the same breast. Bev had a mastectomy in September 2009 and had her lymph nodes removed as a precaution.

“It was right underneath my lumpectomy scar,” says Beverly. “It was tiny, half the size of the last one. It was picked up early and didn’t need any other treatment. When I found out it was a new cancer and not a recurrence I didn’t know whether that was good news or worse news. To have had two cancers in four years – it was a shock.”