How a Warwick father and daughter beat breast cancer together

Zelda Wilson, 44, from Hampton Magna, first had to have one of her breasts removed and endure months of chemotherapy in 2007.

As the treatment was drawing to a close she found out her dad Johann had also been diagnosed with the disease, and he too had to undergo a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

The mother of two said: “I didn’t realise men could get breast cancer so for my father to get it in the same year as me was absolutely incredible.

“He’s quite a character and I made a joke ‘you can’t stand anyone else having the limelight’. He laughed – he wasn’t traumatised by it at all.

“He came through treatment really well and there’s no sign of the cancer now.

“I had six months of chemotherapy and 20 days of radiotherapy. After that I felt strong – like it was all over and I could now recover. It was another two years before I discovered the cancer was likely to come back.”

Ms Wilson, who moved to Warwick from South Africa in 2001, was told she had inherited a faulty gene which gives carriers an 85 per cent chance of developing breast cancer.

So she took the decision to have her healthy right breast removed as well as opting for a hysterectomy to prevent the cancer returning.“It was very traumatic to lose both breasts, it made me realise just how much my femininity meant to me.

“I was in total shock. With tears were streaming down my face I remember saying to the nurse, ‘I’ve always complained about my breasts but I love them and I don’t want to lose them’”

The inspirational mum of Ben, 12, and Alexander, ten, still managed to run the Warwick Race for Life in between chemotherapy treatments, and will do two more this summer.

And she has volunteered to get up on stage and share her inspiring story with a crowd of up to 5,000 women participants in Coventry before sounding the starting horn.

“I’m just thankful that I’m still here to see my boys grow up. That’s why I feel so passionately about raising funds for research because if it wasn’t for the amazing strides which have already been made I might not be here to tell this tale.”