Candy Ekanoye: We need answers to why breast cancer continues to devastate families

Candy Ekanoye was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003, aged just 41. Three months later, her sister devastatingly received her own breast cancer diagnosis. However, it didn’t just stop there, with both her cousin, auntie and then more recently Candy’s daughter, Victoria, being diagnosed.

Candy is mother of actress, Victoria Ekanoye, and both women are now proud ambassadors for Prevent Breast Cancer.

Despite undergoing genetic testing, Candy and her family tested negative for any known breast cancer causing genes. Candy therefore understands more than most why more research into breast cancer is necessary, and this is one of the many reasons why she supports Prevent Breast Cancer’s campaign to build a National Breast Imaging Academy.

We caught up with Candy to find out more about her diagnosis and why she’s campaigning to build this life-saving building:

I was only 41 when I was diagnosed. I’ve always exercised, and it was during a charity race that I thought I pulled a muscle in my arm, and I ended up at the doctors. She confirmed I had, but she said she’d check my breasts whilst I was there, just to be on the safe side. So she checked me, and she kept going back to my right and she said you realise you’ve got a lump. And I went right, ok, and she said she’d send me for a mammogram.

So, they did, and I didn’t tell the family. The lump was actually underneath a muscle, and they couldn’t get to it, so it took a lot of biopsies. I went back for the results on my own because I wasn’t thinking anything along the lines of breast cancer. It was honestly the last thing on my mind.

It wasn’t until I got in the room and there was a nurse there and the doctor asking had I come on my own that I knew they were about to give me bad news. He told me I had breast cancer, and my heart just dropped.

Even though she was in shock, Candy made the decision that she was determined to not let her diagnosis beat her:

Straight away after my operation and after the drains had been removed, I went straight back to work and then I stopped to have my treatment, which included chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Luckily for me the lump was only small, and they caught it in time.

Just three months after my diagnosis my sister approached me saying she had liquid coming out of her nipple. We went straight to the doctors and after all the tests, it came back she had breast cancer. Then six months later my other sister was diagnosed with cervical cancer. So there was three of us battling cancer in the same year.

We asked Candy why building the National Breast Imaging Academy is so important to her:

Thanks to having access to my local breast unit and all the breast specialists, I was able to make a full recovery. When I read about the severe workforce shortages within breast imaging in the UK, I’m scared for the future.

I was lucky, and my breast cancer was caught early, but what about other women? What happens if they can’t access a breast centre quickly and have to wait a long time for a mammogram?

Prevent Breast Cancer now urgently needs the final £150,000 to complete the build of the Academy. Time is running out and they have just weeks to make it happen. This state-of-the-art building will provide better breast cancer facilities, meaning shorter waiting times, improved outcomes and crucially, increased survival rates.

We also need answers to why breast cancer continues to devastate families. The Academy will provide the space for more research which will change the future of breast cancer. I don’t want other families to go through what ours has.

My hope is that one day we’ll eradicate cancer, but in the meantime, we just need to help as much as we can by donating to get this life saving Academy built.

Thanks so much for Candy sharing her story with us. Will you help us reach this urgent £150,000 goal and help place the final brick?

Donate today to not only help build the Academy, but help more people survive breast cancer.