Gemma Isaacs was diagnosed with breast cancer, aged 31, the week before her daughter’s first birthday.
“I remember being obsessed with baking [my daughter] a birthday cake,” she says. “Suddenly you are thrown into this whirlwind where that is so far down the priority list, but you also do not want it to be. You still want to give your child a normal birthday.”
It was September 2018. Two years later, she would be in remission with a newborn son.
Speaking to mark National Cancer Survivors Day on June 7, Gemma, 38 told the JC that she was running a media agency – “a big, stressful job” - when she was diagnosed. “I had gone back to work very quickly after having my daughter. She was about four months old when I finished maternity leave, so she was at nursery and I was back at work.”
Gemma, now a personal trainer, had been put on a screening programme by the Royal Marsden aged 18 after learning her father carried BRCA1, the gene linked particularly to breast and ovarian cancers and prevalent in the Jewish community.
“When I turned 30, they called me in for an MRI. I had just had my daughter and had finished breastfeeding,” she says. The MRI detected something, but it was a false alarm. The idea of reliving “that panic every year” unsettled her, so she decided to get herself tested for BRCA. But the wait for the test results was agonising.
“I started to spiral. Every time the phone rang, I thought it was going to be the call,” she says. “I had a really weird feeling…My grandmother had breast cancer at 31 and my first cousin had breast cancer at 31, so 31 was always a scary number for me.
“I went to see a doctor and said: ‘Please, I cannot live like this.’ I asked him to check me,” she says. “He felt something in my armpit, and I could tell from his face that he was worried. I still could not feel the lump myself…It was not obvious.”
The first thing she asked about was fertility preservation as chemotherapy would likely damage her reproductive capabilities. “If I wanted more children, fertility preservation was something I needed to do quickly. I understand that doctors are trying to save your life, but…you also want a life at the end of it. I did not just want to survive.”
[Missing Credit]Gemma Isaacs during treatment (Photo: courtesy)
She completed fertility treatment within ten days of her diagnosis, starting chemotherapy the day after egg retrieval. “Everything happened so fast,” she says.
Over the course of a year, Gemma underwent seven months of chemotherapy, a double mastectomy and reconstruction, and 21 rounds of radiotherapy.
“My attitude was very much: ‘I am not stopping everything’. I remember thinking: ‘The rest of me does not have cancer, and I am going to live as normally as I can.’”
As such, Gemma visited the gym on the morning of her first chemotherapy session. She posted frequently on social media, while “out shopping or having dinner with friends”. She “hoped people would speak to [her] normally, rather than only saying: ‘I am so sorry.’”
At the same time, she felt isolated. Available services did not seem to sufficiently accommodate young people - especially not working mothers.
“Every pamphlet I was given seemed to show an older person being supported by their spouse. I had a full-time job, a baby to get to nursery, and a completely different life,” Gemma says. “The support I really needed was childcare. There was no provision for that.
“My husband still had a full-time job. He could not suddenly stop working. I needed help lifting my daughter, getting her out of the cot, putting her in the car seat, getting her into the bath. After a double mastectomy, I could not lift my arms properly for months. I phoned the insurance company and asked if there was any home help because I physically could not pick up my child. There was nothing. I ended up paying privately for someone to come and help me.
“That is one of the biggest things people do not always understand about young cancer patients. You are not just unwell. You are still a mother.”
Gemma turned to Chai Cancer Care - the Jewish national cancer support organisation –“quite early on”, after her mother’s suggestion and positive reviews from friends.
Among its more than 70 free professional services, she accessed reflexology, massage and one-to-one counselling.
“In the Jewish community, we are very lucky that we value friends, family and community,” says Gemma, who belongs to the Mill Hill United Synagogue community.
[Missing Credit]Gemma Isaacs during treatment (Photo: courtesy)
Friends made “a day of it” when accompanying her in shifts to chemotherapy; they would get lunch or manicures if Gemma felt well enough.
A pre-mastectomy “Bye-Bye Boobies” party, which Gemma celebrated with 35 friends, raised about £6,000 for Chai.
“I had a mindset where I just kept going. I thought if I did not ask for help, it meant I did not need help, and if I did not need help, it meant I was okay. That was how my brain coped.”
However, throughout treatment, the fertility issue was always in the back of her mind. “I felt like I was mourning the child I thought I was not going to have,” she says.
Post-treatment, Gemma was told her ovaries were not functioning. She and Daryl began investigating surrogacy options.
“Then, within a few months of being in remission, I realised I was pregnant. I could not believe it. I sent my husband out to buy more pregnancy tests, and they were all positive,” she says.
But she recounts that her experience of going for hospital appointments was really difficult. “They kept talking to me about breastfeeding and I kept saying, ‘I physically cannot.’ I had no nipples. I had had a double mastectomy. It felt like they did not know what to do with me.”
She had her second child, Jack, in August 2020. Her ovaries were removed soon afterwards, and she went into immediate menopause. It was the safest outcome, but painful.
[Missing Credit]Gemma Isaacs with her family (Photo: courtesy)
“I always wanted three children…I know how lucky I am,” she says. “People say: ‘You have a girl and a boy, you are fine.’ But when someone tells you that you cannot have something, and it is not your choice, that is very hard to accept.”
Priorities reordered, Gemma left her corporate job to run online coaching, corporate retreats and wellness work instead.
“I am very aware that time is not guaranteed,” she says. “I have a very ‘you only live once’ approach to life now.
“I was making lipstick ads and …I just thought: ‘I really do not care. ‘I wanted to do something I actually enjoy.”
Gemma “was not always into fitness” but soon realised she was “quite good at training”. Her social media platform delivers wellness advice and insights on cancer recovery and motherhood to over 13,000 followers – a beacon for young people navigating a cancer diagnosis.
“I talk about my experience because…I did not ever feel seen. I could not find people…whose lives looked like mine,” she says.
“I do not care about getting a free product on social media. What I care about is if I speak to a room of people and one woman checks her breasts because of it.
“I care if someone who is feeling low in treatment sees that life can look different if you keep going…If someone sees me and thinks…that my story resonates with them, that might give them a bit more hope. There are positive stories…Cancer can become part of your life without becoming your whole life.”
Nor is cancer something Gemma is “grateful” for. “Absolutely not. If you gave me any amount of money, I would take it away,” she says. “But I cannot, so I might as well use it to help someone else.”
[Missing Credit]Cancer survivor Gemma Isaacs (Photo: courtesy)
Unfortunately, Gemma says she has heard frequent stories from young people, concerned about symptoms, saying they get dismissed by their doctor. “They are told they are too young and that it is probably nothing…Sometimes, it is not. It is always better to go and get checked,” she says.
Beyond the physical impact of cancer and treatment, Gemma wants people to understand that young cancer patients, particularly parents with small children, have specific concerns. “They are worried about childcare, fertility, work, relationships, children and the life they are trying to build. Those things matter too.”
Charlotte Hildebrand, Chai Cancer Care’s head of client Services, says the organisation is seeing “growing demand” for specialist support aimed at addressing such pressures.
“Younger people want support that understands the specific challenges they are facing, whether that is early menopause, parenting, fertility decisions, identity, confidence or simply adjusting to life after cancer,” Hildebrand said. “At Chai, we want people to know there is support available at every stage of that journey, both during treatment and beyond it.”
chaicancercare.org
To register your interest in a BRCA test, go to: jewishbrca.org
@gemma_isaacs
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