Mother of Two Diagnosed With Stage 3 Breast Cancer Less Than One Day After Giving Birth
Mother of Two Diagnosed with Stage 3 Breast Cancer After Giving Birth: 'I Always Put Myself Last' [...]
Mother of Two Diagnosed with Stage 3 Breast Cancer After Giving Birth: 'I Always Put Myself Last' -… https://t.co/F4TqYKUkXf - - - #cancer pic.twitter.com/cBBsPx2jNI
— Cancer News 24/7 (@cancernews247) May 12, 2017
Farrah Millar gave birth to her second child, Rhylan, on March 29, 2016. Not even one day later, she found out she had stage 3, grade 2, breast cancer.
"It was very aggressive," Millar, 38, tells PEOPLE. "Everything was fuzzy after that. I just remember thinking, 'Am I going to die? What's going to happen?' "
When Millar was five months pregnant, she noticed a lump on her breast, but didn't think twice about it. At the time, she was breastfeeding her now-2-year-old daughter, Lehnae, and thought she just had mastitis, a breast inflammation usually caused by infection.
At her 38-week doctor's appointment, she mentioned the lump and was given an ultrasound and was told the results would come back after she gave birth.
"I never once thought it would be bad," she says. "But the day after I gave birth, I had a shower, walked back into my hospital room and saw my doctor and two midwives standing together and holding hands."
Her doctor told her the bad news and she was immediately thrown onto the "cancer train." Within three weeks of her diagnosis, she was starting chemotherapy and stopped breast feeding.
Her relationship with her partner and father of her two children fell apart around the same time she decided to have a double mastectomy in October. She contracted an infection that surrounded the tissue expanders that were inserted as a part of the reconstruction process after the procedure.
"I was very unwell at the end of this year until last month," she says. "In January, I went to live with my mom because I was so sick. It's been a very difficult time, but I'm just starting to feel better now."
When she grew very ill, she moved in with her mother. Months later, she is back in her own home and is able to look after her kids without assistance.
She hopes her story encourages women to be more vigilant with her health.
"I was so disrespectful with mine," she says. "It's so important to look after yourself. I always put myself last."
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