In 2018, Roisín Pelan was told that her breast cancer had returned with a vengeance and she had just three years to live. Yet, seven years later, she is still here, bringing home clear scans.
The 43-year-old initially felt an olive-sized lump in her breast while pregnant, forcing an early labor and a mastectomy just six days after giving birth to Lily, now 11.
Following six grueling rounds of chemotherapy, Pelan, from Lancashire, England, was told she was cancer-free. Then, four years later in January 2018, she began experiencing pain where her breast once was and underneath her arm, followed by a same-sized lump in her neck.
“I knew it was back,” she told Newsweek. Pelan was diagnosed with stage 3C metastatic breast cancer and given the heartbreaking prognosis.
“I didn’t have any hope in my heart,” she said. “I thought it was total darkness from there.
“The breast cancer came back in several lymph nodes—under my arm, behind my breast, and all the way up to my neck, including the supraclavicular node just above my collarbone.
“Even though it hadn’t spread to any major organs, because it had moved above the collarbone and up into my neck, it was classed as stage 3C—and once it reaches that area, it’s often considered incurable. That’s because it shows the cancer has started traveling beyond the original site and could already be in the lymphatic system more widely.”
Survival Rates Aren’t a Life Sentence
Each year, about 55,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the U.K., according to Macmillan Cancer Support.
In comparison, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the United States, aside from skin cancers. It accounts for about 30 percent (or 1 in 3) of all new female cancers annually, states the American Cancer Society.
Newsweek reached out to Dr. Daniel Landau, a board-certified expert in medical oncology, internal medicine, and hematology, who explained how oncologists quote survival rates based on clinical trial data.
Landau said such trials provide only an “average,” and that “no one is average”—meaning outcomes vary widely depending on individual health, tumor biology, and evolving treatments. Many trial participants, he explained, are elderly or have other health conditions, and may die from unrelated causes like heart disease. Though not cancer-related, these deaths still affect overall survival data.
He emphasized that survival statistics can “vastly underestimate what can happen in the real world” because they often don’t reflect newer, more effective therapies that become available after the trials conclude.
A prime example, he said, is immunotherapy: “Ten years ago, immunotherapies were just a dream. If I’m quoting a study from that era, the number might sound low. But we now know these therapies can add years to a patient’s life.”
Landau, also an expert contributor for The Mesothelioma Center at Asbestos.com, said that oncologists must extrapolate from multiple studies to give patients the best estimate, but acknowledged that “it’s a very inexact science.”
Fighting for More Than Palliative Care
Medics initially suggested palliative chemotherapy, but Pelan fought for surgery to remove the tumor and pushed for new treatments to be considered.
“My oncologist got me on every medication possible, and I went every week for 24 weeks for 18 rounds of chemotherapy,” she said.
In September of the same year, she had a clear positron emission tomography (PET) scan, and it has continued to be clear ever since. The next year, she was able to adopt her son as a baby, who is referred to as Bill, now six.
The reason for adoption was because pregnancy exerts a dual influence on breast cancer risk. It can temporarily increase risk in the short term but lower a woman’s lifetime risk overall.
“He was born for us, he is hilarious and a perfect boy,” she said.
A Mission to Help Others
Pelan has also set up Fighting to be Heard, a charity dedicated to raising awareness and offering financial support and friendship for those living with incurable secondary breast cancer. She has also traveled and written a children’s book.
She recently shared a post on Instagram @roisinppelan highlighting how she not only got to see Lily start primary school but finish it too.
An extract from the caption said: “It’s impossible not to think back to those early days when I didn’t know if I’d get here. It’s been emotional.”
She told Newsweek: “Even though I had surgery and the tumor was removed, and nothing showed up on scans afterwards, I‘m still on long-term treatment.
“I take Palbociclib (a chemo tablet), along with hormone therapy, not because the cancer is active right now—but to help stop any microscopic cells (the ones too tiny to show up on scans) from growing or spreading again.”
The post Mom Given Just Three Years To Live, Unprepared for What Happens Next appeared first on Newsweek.
