Chapel breast cancer survivor braving the shave for Macmillan

Pauline Thomson had chemotherapy for a year and radio therapy for five weeks after her sudden diagnosis of breast cancer and as a result lost all her hair.

Now the 59-year-old from Chaple-en-le-Frith will be shaving all her hair off on Thursday, July 25 to help give back to the charity which supported her.

She said: “I have been through cancer, I know the treatments are vile and horrible but I’m here today because of them.

“I lost every hair on my body from my eyelashes to my arm hair with the chemo but now I’m better I want to stand with the people who are going through cancer and help give something back.”

Pauline was checking her breasts in the shower when she found a lump, the next day she went to the doctors and was sent for tests.

A week later she was having surgery to tackle her stage three breast cancer which had spread to her lymph nodes. She said: “It was all a bit surreal as it happened so quickly and there wasn’t time to process it all.

She is shaving her hair as her reminder of how far she has come but also in memory of her friend Pat Sherwood who died from pancreatic cancer five years ago.

Pauline added: “When you are having the treatment you have to be brave for your family and friends but having Macmillan, the Christie and Blythe House Hospice gave me a place where I could just be me and didn’t have to put up a front.

“All of them do amazing things for people when they need them the most.”

To donate: bravetheshave.macmillan.org.uk/shavers/pauline-thomson