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- Kim's breast cancer story
Cancer changes how you see time.
Over the past 18 years Kim, who is now age 65, has faced primary breast cancer twice - in 2008 and 2018, secondary breast cancer in 2024, and in April 2025, the secondary cancer was found to have spread to her brain.
A mum of two daughters and proud grandmother to boys age two and four, Kim worked in banking for 35 years, with her final role training customers in corporate online banking systems – something she really enjoyed and excelled at. Known as the go-to person, if someone had an issue they’d say, “Ask Kim, she’ll know.”
In 2008, age 47, Kim was diagnosed with breast cancer in her right breast, and using her private health cover through her employer, had a mastectomy and reconstruction with a DIEP flap, at the MacIndoe centre in East Grinstead. Two years of tamoxifen, a drug used to treat hormone receptor-positive breast cancer followed, with no need for chemotherapy or radiotherapy and for ten years, life returned to normal.
In 2018, Kim was diagnosed with breast cancer in her left breast, a rarer type which needed another mastectomy, with reconstruction using tissue from the upper thigh - but this time was also followed by chemotherapy.
In 2024, Kim felt another lump in her right breast. At the time, her mum was being treated for lobular breast cancer by the same consultant Kim saw in 2008, and she mentioned her own concerns during one of her mum’s appointments.
The consultant referred Kim for tests, and she was diagnosed with secondary cancer, originating from the 2008 breast cancer. Once again Kim used her private health cover and was treated with chemotherapy at the GenesisCare centre in Maidstone.
In early 2025, while still having chemotherapy, Kim experienced headaches and her consultant at GenesisCare, Dr Harper-Wynne, arranged a scan which revealed Kim had one main brain tumour and a few smaller ones. “I’ve had a lot of cancer,” Kim says, “but this was the most frightening.”
Brain tumours meant Kim had to surrender her driving licence, which made travel difficult as she lives in a remote area. GenesisCare arranged for Kim’s transport to and from appointments - which she felt was crucial to being able to have the treatment she needed.
Kim had Gamma Knife radiosurgery at the GenesisCare centre in Cromwell Hospital in London under Dr Vinayan, and by July 2025 was relieved to hear the brain tumours had shrunk. By September 2025, they had disappeared, and by December 2025, her consultant confirmed there was no evidence of any disease in her brain. “I made them repeat it,” said Kim, “I needed to hear it again.”
Going back to late 2024, Kim was offered early retirement which meant losing her private health care, but she continued to pay for her own reduced insurance, covering her existing cancer. Continuity of private health care matters deeply to Kim, who has regular CT and MRI scans, where the results are fast and her clinical team are familiar with her history. “Waiting six or eight weeks for results would be unbearable,” Kim explains.
Through everything, family has been Kim’s anchor and when one of her daughters needed support, she accessed complimentary counselling through the GenesisCare partnership with the charity Penny Brohn UK. Kim herself has also found huge value in the support available from Penny Brohn UK and says she’s learned there’s real power in taking support where it’s offered.
Today, Kim receives 3 weekly phesgo injections - which aim to prevent her current cancer’s from growing or spreading, and denosumab injections every 6 weeks, to protect her bones. Her health is stable and she chooses joy deliberately. “If someone says let’s go away for the weekend - I go. Cancer changes how you see time. And if reading my story helps someone feel less alone, then I’m glad to have helped.”