I couldn't have predicted that 2026 would begin at this Edinburgh hospital
The first part of this year is going to be tricky
The Soutar family has been on something of a rickety rollercoaster.
My fortysomething sister found a small breast lump at the end of last summer.
It’ll be nothing, we thought. I remember when I got one checked out years ago - it was fine - and the nurse who examined me said, “Breasts are like bags of peas”. Just a pea. That is all. However, the biopsy proved otherwise.
Suddenly, and almost exactly 30 years since my mum was diagnosed with the same disease, my little sister was part of the club of which nobody wants to be a member.
The opposite of Soho House. Noho House.
Some people inherit the family jewels or a title, but she’d got the big C. Just a fault in your DNA, said the consultant, nothing you could do.
It’s funny how you think back, to the days of blissful ignorance, when something was quietly and nefariously growing, like the mould on an expensive block of IJ Mellis cheese.
Back then, breast cancer was just a vague concept to us.
Now, I’ve assumed the fortnightly role of coming along to the Western General Hospital’s Breast Cancer Unit appointments, where we sit for long spells among other worried-looking faces, as Nick Kershaw and other antique pop relics play on the radio.
My main role, apart from wittering on nervously, has been to take the shaky-handed notes that nobody can decipher afterwards.
Listening to whatever the consultant says reminds us both, since we’re nervous flyers, of watching the cabin crew when you’re in the air. You’re hyper alert to their intonation, their expression and body language. Trying to read the unspoken bad news, or good.
When it comes to hard facts, you quickly start to understand the medical lingo.
My late dad was a GP and we loved thumbing through his graphic biology books, so we’ve got a bit of knowledge.
However, I’ve become very familiar with the terms that I would have had no clue about before. HER2 positive or negative, Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, oestrogen receptive, grades, stages. Before, I had no idea that breast cancer was something of an umbrella term, now I realise it’s a spectrum. Each case is as individual as a snowflake.
First, the ultrasound revealed that the tumour was small, but a later more sensitive MRI revealed it was about triple the size they'd originally thought.
It was dumbbell shaped, apparently, or a bit like the Starship Enterprise. It quickly grew from a pea to a peach. Later, it turned out there was also a satellite formation, too.
It took a while to get all the information, as it seems it’s complicated to get an accurate picture of what’s inside the body. Those secrets like to stay in the dark, like woodlice under plant pots.
The lumpectomy was sacked, and a mastectomy was planned instead.
Although my mum had always told us that she regretted not having a reconstruction, after she got her mastectomy at age 59, my sister decided to park that idea for now.
There had already been a few months of hugely stressful waiting for further MRIs and tests, and she’d got to the point that she just wanted it gone.
Also, as a single parent of three, she couldn’t cope with the practicalities of something like a DIEP flap reconstruction, which she amusingly dubbed the Johnny Depp Flap procedure. (The consultant promised that he would call it that from now on).
Although this surgery has impressive results, it involves a heavier duty op with a longer recovery period.
However, the deciding factor was that there would be more of a wait for that.
The other option was an implant, which can be carried out at the same time as a mastectomy. It sounded easier, but there’s no guarantee of how it will react if you then have to get radiotherapy. It can stay perfect, or frazzle. That was ruled out, too.
At this point, if she could’ve scooped the tumour out herself, with a spoon, she would’ve.
It’s strange when your body suddenly becomes the enemy. It felt as if it’d long been making plans for a coup.
The eventual op was pedestrian and bish-bash-bosh for something so life-altering.
They’re utterly amazing at the Western General Hospital and I have never been so grateful for the NHS, but they have a lot of patients to service. In this unit alone, they treat more than 20,000 annually, and one in seven women in the UK get breast cancer in their lifetime. Rates are rising, especially among women under 50.
My mum’s pal, aged 90, told me that she has 17 good friends who have had the disease and, ever since my sister was diagnosed, she’s made so many cancer pals.
All of them have different prognosis, varying stages and features.
Anyway, after one night on the ward post op, they tried to turf my sister out, though she ended up staying for two.
I knew that she was going to recover fast when I visited her with one of her favourite cinnamon buns from The Pastry Section, and she snaffled it immediately.
She had really lost her appetite and shed about a stone in the run up to the operation and when we were in the horrible diagnosis waiting stage, but, hooray, the Soutar hunger was back with a vengeance.
Since then, she’s had all the strange swelling, tingling and burning symptoms, as her nerve endings regenerate and her body recovers.
However, there is yet more treatment to come. Now, we’re waiting for the dreaded chemotherapy, which starts tomorrow.
She will have 16 weeks of it, then radiotherapy and further drug treatment.
She is definitely part of the Noho House club now, but we’re hoping that the summer of 2026 will bring better things.
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