'My mental health has been such a challenge'

My extreme anxiety has always lurked within me for as far back as I can remember. I like to call her Annie Anxiety. She loves to cause havoc most days, creating waves of diva drama that crash down on anything she fancies. She came to a volcanic head when my mother, who is an idol of mine, was diagnosed and subsequently hospitalised with Multiple Sclerosis whilst I was studying Fashion at Bournemouth University, aged 21.

To say my mental health deteriorated is an understatement. I wallowed in self-pity, escaping my feelings by drinking and partying hard. I still feel quite bitter about the grade I achieved due to all this, but luckily I managed to pass, and I actively lie about it on my CV! Eventually I was diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder, GAD for short, oh and severe depression. Fab stuff. And such a cliché for an artist.

Entering the world of fashion

Life continues whether one is labelled or diagnosed or not and so, despite it, I tried my best to obtain the creative job I hankered after. I brazenly chose the ridiculously competitive, rarely available role of Fashion Editor as my goal. Super achievable and easy then? Nope! I managed to find work as an intern in the fashion departments of various publications, including The Daily Mail and Company magazine, before working my way up to very poorly paid long-term ‘head intern’ at both Red and Glamour magazines. But at least I was getting actual job interviews for magazines, and assisting on celebrity cover photoshoots, which was exciting. I felt as if my dream was getting closer, even if I had to work in retail at the weekends to make ends meet.

However, I only ever managed to get as far as the final two candidates, failing to get the jobs I longed for. Cue another huge mental spiral downwards, heartbreak that I’ve still not recovered from, and a rather dramatic exit in my first week at Easy Living magazine, where I was again a fashion cupboard intern. I was done. Finished with the job quest. Doom set in rapidly.

Work became difficult again

Fast forwarding through the dark depressive days that followed, with Anxious Annie becoming my whole persona it seemed, I eventually landed a cool job as stylist/personal shopper at Top Shop, Oxford Circus. I worked with such a lovely group of souls who I will treasure for life. A coven of sorts. I was happy there for several years, but sadly I spiralled into depression again and my role was made redundant whilst I was off sick with my mental health issues. There were several things which helped me bounce back from yet another difficult period – years of therapy (all kinds); medication; mindfulness apps; books; support groups; EMDR. There is a lot of support out there but of course the NHS is woefully underfunded and overwhelmed. I’ve had to fight for a lot of the help, with my ‘if they offer it, I’ll try it’ attitude. Daily life was still difficult, and I now know I suffer from CPTSD from events in my childhood, but the worst was yet to come.

My soap opera life!

As part of the GAD I mentioned earlier, I also suffer with Health Anxiety, which was triggered by struggling to conceive a very longed-for child. Looking through some photos of myself, my hyper-intuitive, slightly obsessive nature seemed to pick up on something odd. My hair looked thinner, my face drawn, and my eyes looked soulless. I felt as if something dreadful might be happening to my body. I felt anxiety like never before. And then I fell pregnant, just before I was due to start IVF, and was evicted from my home. Pregnant, homeless, and unbeknown to me, gravely ill. My life appeared to be a soap opera!

We packed up our entire lives and moved into our current home when I was eight months pregnant. My blooming body grew a beautiful baby girl whilst it was also housing a tennis ball sized tumour within the lymph nodes inside my lungs. Obviously this tumour needed an accomplice so his buddy, a ping-pong ball sized one, rested at the base of my ribs. Not knowing this, I continued to take my personal clients shopping around the largest retail space in Europe, Westfield, until the week I gave birth. Not exactly zen!

My baby girl was delivered swiftly and perfectly, for which I’ll be forever grateful, but my anxiety went through the roof. I seemed to sense with every fibre of my being that it wasn’t just post-partum anxiety or the GAD I’d suffered from previously. I didn’t sleep. At all. Even when my daughter slept. I kept hallucinating. My bowels emptied constantly, I rapidly lost weight, and eventually I developed pneumonia. Clinicians who had, at first, brushed my fears off as those of an extremely anxious new mum were now looking at me with concern in their eyes.

The news I was dreading

After having x-rays, a top lung consultant was appointed quickly, and when I returned to his office after a CT scan, I spotted a Macmillan nurse with him. He insisted that my husband and new-born were back from a nappy change before he spoke. Sweat poured down my face as I realised that I was very ill indeed. The consultant had tears in his eyes as he delivered the news. ‘This is definitely cancer, we’re just not sure if it is lung cancer or a blood cancer at his precise moment.’ Nature decided to join in at this point as thunder cracked loudly overhead, breaking the pained silence.

Things after that seemed a bit hazy. I developed sepsis after a horrible test called a Bronchoscopy and was admitted to hospital. As I had a lung biopsy scheduled for a few days later at least we avoided more ludicrous car park charges. And as I signed the agreement for the biopsy to go ahead, clutching my childhood teddy, I realised it was Friday 13th. I do not do things by halves!

Within the whirlwind of faeces that life was hurling at me, I still managed to laugh a lot throughout that hospital stay. Maybe it was unimaginable fear making me hysterical. Perhaps slightly unhinged septic and cancerous madness. I was missing my baby and feeling epic mum guilt, but my inner ox was guiding me. Belly laughs saved me from spiralling mentally and never resurfacing.

Staying away from my baby was painful

After the sepsis had been conquered, I had the bad boy of all cancer diagnostics, the PET scan. What on earth is that sci-fi stuff? They inject you with some kind of futuristic, radioactive, sugary liquid that has to travel around your body in isolation, administered by a doctor from another room. I imagined it was luminous yellow. And then you have to double flush the toilet after going for fear of the end of days or something! And carry a yellow card declaring you are radioactive. The sad look on the radiographer’s face convinced me that I had terminal lung cancer and had better prepare my coffin clobber. The saddest part though was that I had to stay away from my baby girl for an excruciating 24 hours so not to mess with her rapidly developing cells. As in a different house entirely. At this point I was convinced she must have cancer anyway, after being in my womb whilst it grew.

However, in another of those miserable consulting rooms, full of stale air, I was told that I had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a rare blood cancer that mostly affects the young. At 32, I wasn’t in the typical age bracket. The consultant seemed incredibly relieved as he’d believed it was lung cancer. This was treatable, it could be cured. We didn’t take that on board straight away, my husband was ashen with shock. I immediately became extra British, politely chatting to the Macmillan nurse about chemotherapy. Now I realise I had disassociated, my number one go-to coping mechanism.

I became a hot manic mama mess

The chemo days were essentially the ‘easy’ cancer days. Following the drug binge I just slept and cried mostly. Crying for the motherhood experience I was missing. And grieving for the loss of any future children as I’d been told I was guaranteed to go into medically induced menopause and there had been no time to freeze my eggs prior to treatment. So, I became the mum that did every class; cooked from scratch; dressed her immaculately; took her on play dates; read all the books; did all the ‘perfect’ cancer patient therapeutic and complimentary therapies. I was a hot, manic mama mess – now bloated from steroids and severe constipation. It wasn’t ideal and it left a mark once life slowed back down, but it was the only way through the storm. I just had to keep going as best I could, inspired by my baby, and with lots of support from friends and family.

I actually amazed my oncologist (and myself) by continuing to menstruate throughout treatment, and I still am nine years later. And the tumours have vanished completely, bar some scarring on my right lung. Remission. The mission achieved. ‘Keep calm and carry on’ had been the motto during the fight. And I really loathe that cliched phrase, but it was a brutal ‘battle’. We eventually picked up the pieces of our lives, with depression and anxiety bubbling up with more venom than the tumours of course. I have found it incredibly poignant to share my story with others in this same, yet entirely different, boat and hope it will help some of you in your journey forwards.

Nicola is 41 and is busy raising her young family in Hertfordshire with her (long suffering!) husband. She adores and spoils her two cats, has a severe penchant for any kind of retail therapy, and relishes being in nature. Her initial diagnosis of stage 2b Hodgkin’s Lymphoma came very soon after the arrival of her first child in early 2015. A secondary cancer, Follicular Thyroid, was discovered by chance in June 2021.