No parent should have to bury their child but supporting new research gives me hope

"I still cry every day for the loss of Cathrin. She was my first-born child, and it’s like losing a huge part of myself."

You always hear people say that “you don’t die of breast cancer – you live with it” but sadly that just isn’t true. It’s not just one cancer with good survival rates, there are much more aggressive types of breast cancer too – like the HER2+ breast cancer that Cathrin was diagnosed with.

From day one, she only had a slim chance.

As soon as Cathrin noticed a lump in her armpit she went straight to the doctors and she was diagnosed soon after. She started chemotherapy straightaway, but within weeks the tumour had already doubled in size, so she had to have a mastectomy just ten days later.

This was followed by more gruelling chemotherapy and radiotherapy – but nothing worked. The cancer spread to her lungs and then her adrenal glands. At this point, she was offered a new drug as part of a clinical trial. For ten months, it seemed to be working. It was wonderful - we felt so hopeful that this was the turning point. But then Cathrin experienced a sudden onset of awful new symptoms when she lost power in her left arm. We desperately hoped that it was just a side effect of the strong trial drug she was on. You tell yourself that it will be fine and to keep going, but we knew that something was wrong.

In 2019 we received the awful news that whilst the clinical trial drug had been working on the cancer in Cathrin’s chest, it had already spread to her brain. There was no stopping it.

"Her final appointment was on the 23rd of March 2020, which is when we were told that we were out of options. The cancer was terminal and palliative care was all that was left."

Being right at the beginning of lockdown added another layer of hell. It would have been an awful time regardless, but the restrictions made everything so much worse. It felt like we were abandoned – that Cathrin was just left to slip through the net.

She was admitted to a hospice three weeks later because she was deteriorating so much. We told her she was just going in for an assessment because she was so distressed, but we knew that we would be saying goodbye.

Because of lockdown, only her sister and I were able to be in the room with Cathrin. There was no contact between the medical staff and the family, and her husband, dad and brothers weren’t able to visit – they could only come up to the patio door.

"Upsettingly, Cathrin had lost most of her speech by the end, but she could still say some things. She would lock eyes with me and ask to go home, and she could still say the names of her two young daughters."

My bubbly, bright, beautiful daughter passed away on the 7th of May 2020. It felt like I lost a part of myself - I’ve cried every day since. We were only able to have a small funeral, just 20 people at the graveside and no wake afterwards, no opportunity to share memories and grieve together.

We still haven’t been able to come together as a family. I’ve desperately needed people around, and it just hasn’t been possible, so milestones like birthdays, Christmas and Mother’s Day have been unbearable. The whole year has felt so raw - I used to love hearing Cathrin’s laughter, and I remember the first time that I realised how long it had been since I had heard her laugh. It’s been the most terrifying, lonely period of my life.