“I knew that I could pick up the phone and contact the Irish Cancer Society Support Line. I knew there were people that I could talk to, who would listen to me and support me. It’s so important to remember that nobody has to go through their diagnosis on their own.”
In October 2023, Natalie Moloney, then 43, had been discussing male breast cancer with her partner when she decided to check her breasts for the first time.
“I only checked one and then I got such a fright because I found the lump.” Natalie also says after she felt the lump, her breast became sore, and she had a burning sensation.
The mother-of-five from Bray, Co. Wicklow, found another lump on the other breast that were mirror images of each other. She initially went to A&E and then went to her GP a few days later. She was referred to a Breast Clinic to have a mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy for her right breast.
“It all happened pretty quick” she says.
Natalie was told that she would need to come into the hospital to hear the results of the triple assessment and ultimately get another biopsy done of the left breast. She was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer - ER positive cancer in the right breast, and triple negative breast cancer in the left breast.
“At first I thought, how is that even possible?”
When determining her treatment, Natalie says, “Whatever they say, alright, get it done. Full steam ahead.”
In December 2023 she started chemotherapy. Natalie says she had to be “pumped full” of steroids and be given oxygen because her oxygen levels dropped.
“Other than that, I was fine,” she says.
“My first day going in, it was a very daunting experience. But please do not compare yourself to anyone in there. We were all in there because we had cancer but it's different types, different stages, different grades, and different treatments.
“I’d go into the hospital and try to make everyone else laugh to mask my fear.”
Her chemotherapy ended in May 2024, and in June she had surgery – a single mastectomy and a lumpectomy on the same day. “I could not fault the care that I received from the time of my diagnosis. They do amazing work,” she says.
In August of that year, once she had healed from her surgeries, she started 20 rounds of radiation and six months of oral chemotherapy. Her treatment finished in January 2025.
“There’s a stigma around cancer. People don’t talk about it. But we need to educate ourselves more. I was never taught how to check my breasts; I just happened to do it.
“It’s like there’s a shame with it. But there’s no need to be ashamed of having cancer. You’re not on your own. There are people that are there to listen to you full of anxiety, to listen to your concerns, your fears.”
Natalie says that she’s been asked before how she copes with the diagnosis and treatment, and if she’s angry. “Angry for what? Angry at who? Do you want me standing in the middle of the street screaming and shouting? What is that going to achieve?
“I’m not going to miraculously not have cancer, and I just wasted five minutes of my energy screaming and shouting. It doesn’t change the fact that you have it.”
Natalie, now 45, has returned to her work in retail, as she wasn’t allowed to work due to being immunocompromised during her chemotherapy. She is now “trying to find the new normal” as she returned to work in August of this year. “It’s like a breath of fresh air,” she says.
“I can still look in the mirror and see me. I don’t see somebody who’s full of scars. I don’t see somebody who’s been through hell and back to be in this life. I see me.”
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