A mother of-four has been told to get her affairs in order after breast cancer that doctors initially dismissed spread to her liver and brain.
Ashleigh Ellerton, 29, was told by her GP that she was ‘too young’ to get the disease when she first sought help for breast pain in 2020.
The doctor said that, given she didn’t have a family history of the illness, the sensation in her right breast was unlikely to be anything serious.
But a small lump appeared and the former carer, from Bridlington, Yorkshire, made a ‘stubborn’ plea for a referral.
‘I refused to leave until they’d sent me to the breast clinic,’ she said.
Ms Ellerton was sent for a mammogram, multiple ultrasounds and a CT scan.
Eventually, in March 2020, she was given the devastating diagnosis of inflammatory breast cancer — a rare and aggressive form of the disease that causes swollen, red and sometimes painful skin, and may not involve a lump.
She was told she would need an enslaught of treatment to destroy the disease, including six rounds of chemotherapy, 15 radiotherapy sessions and a mastectomy.
Ashleigh Ellerton has been struck with a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer that kills around 60 per cent of patients in five years.
Recalling the moment of her diagnosis she said: The words came out of his mouth, but it was sort of like they didn’t.
‘The only thing I could think of was that we had just booked a family holiday.
‘It was sort of like unplanning things in my head rather than listening to what the doctor was saying. And then when we left the room, it sunk in.
‘It was almost like it wasn’t happening to me. It was happening to someone else and I was just watching it.’
In December 2020 she was given the all-clear and married her partner Simon, a former trainee butcher, in 2021.
‘I was convinced that the cancer was not finished with me,’ said Ms Ellerton.
‘I told my nurses who had come to my wedding that my cancer was going to come back in my liver.’
In 2022, she contracted sepsis — a life-threatening immune system reaction to an infection — and doctors were forced to remove her gallbladder, which had become damaged.
Ms Ellerton was given the all-clear at the end of 2020 and married her partner the following year.
A GP said she was ‘too young’ to develop breast cancer when she asked for help aged 24.
During her surgery, doctors found secondary breast cancer in her liver. The disease was now metastatic and she had just three years to live.
‘It was a shock but I’d read stories and I’d seen people live a lot longer,’ said Ms Ellerton.
‘So I didn’t think I would die in three years, there is no chance.’
Around a quarter of women with breast cancer that’s spread to other areas of the body, otherwise known as metastatic disease, will survive for five years or more, according to Cancer Research UK.
‘The cancer is not curable at this point, but may be controlled with treatment for some years,’ the charity states on its website.
But within two years, she’d begun experiencing migraines and mood swings.
Tests later revealed the disease had spread to the thin tissue layers that cover the brain and spinal cord — known medically as leptomeningeal metastases.
Around five to 10 per cent of cancer patients with solid tumours develop this type of recurrence, with those with skin, breast or lung cancer most likely to be affected.
Sadly, Ms Ellerton’s disease had progressed to the point no further treatments were deemed effective, and she was told to put her affairs in order.
‘I had three months to live,’ she said. ‘I then had to go home to tell my children, I remember them screaming.
‘My five-year-old didn’t understand what was going on, but I remember him crying and saying he wasn’t going to see me.’
She has already achieved her ‘biggest goal’ — making it until Christmas.
‘It is our favourite time of year, and there was absolutely no way I would pass away before then.
‘My daughter did ask if Santa could take away my cancer, which I think left poor Santa in a bit of shock.’
Now, she is focusing on making her children memory boxes that will last forever — including birthday cards, prom gifts, letters and trinkets, and has set up a fundraiser to help with the cost of final family trips.
‘I would want them to remember I was present and that I fought as hard as I could,’ she said.
Ms Ellerton has donated her biopsies for research and hopes this can help future treatment for others.
‘I’m just hoping that one day in the future, the things I have done will stop this from happening to another family.’
