Derry woman shares how playing rugby through chemo helped keep her going

Amelia went to the doctor after find a lump in her breast. She thought it was nothing but decided to get it checked out anyway. The doctor told her that it was probably nothing, but sent her to the North West Cancer Centre ‘just to be sure’, who also thought nothing of it but sent her for scans anyway. Amelia says it was after the mammogram that the tone of the conversations started to change.

"Doctors think they’re great actors,” Amelia said. “But you can tell straight away when something’s wrong. I remember crying when they were taking a biopsy because I knew what it was and, although they couldn’t tell me, they knew too. I met the surgeon who told me they would send the biopsy off and that I should bring someone back with me next time round. I remember going into the car and crying and crying. I knew it was the end of my old life and I was scared of what the future held and what everything looked like. I was scared for my sport and my life and knew that chemo was no walk in the park. I knew I was going to lose my hair so I sat there and cried and cried and cried.”

"The first person I rang was my mum. She told me to drive safely home and that we would get everything sorted. I came home and my brother and his girlfriend were there, my mum and dad and they had flowers and chocolates for me and we had a full group hug. It was the most amazing thing ever. I just knew then that there was other people in my corner."

Amelia didn’t tell anyone outside of her immediate family about her diagnosis until she had more information on the type of cancer she had and her treatment plan. Amelia plays for City of Derry Rugby Club and she found it ‘tough’ that she couldn’t tell her teammates what was going on until she knew more.

"The results came and we found out exactly what it was and the treatment plan and everything. That weekend, we were playing against Cavan and we didn’t have a captain that day. The girls very sweetly offered for me to be captain. The tears turned on and I had to pull our coach aside and tell him that I couldn’t do it because I had too much going on. I told my teammates Michelle and Kelly too because half way through the match, I started crying. I’m not usually a crier so they knew something was wrong. The next day, Kelly told me the girls were worried about me and wanted to know what was wrong so I decided that I would be open about all this. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when I told them. We all got into a huddle and I told them about everything that was happening. I told them, if they take anything away from this, please check yourself. If cancer doesn’t happen to you personally, it will happen to a close friend or a family member, that’s how it is with cancer. As I started telling people, people started telling me their stories and how it impacted them and their friends or family members who all survived cancer and got through it. It was so amazing to hear how there are so many strong people out there and that cancer is not what it was. It’s not the end.

"I needed the normality of life to continue for me so I had to keep playing and keep doing what I was doing. Life still goes on when you have cancer and I’m self employed so there was no boss to ask if I could have a few days off. The first cycle was grand, I always felt down for three days after chemo but I could feel myself getting back to normal again. By the time I was getting ready for my second cycle, I was practically the same person as I was when I started it. It was such a mental battle for me and that’s where rugby and sport really helped me. It gave me a routine, got me out of bed and gave me something to look forward to. Sometimes after treatment, I would feel awful and not go but if I did miss training, I would make myself get up on Thursday and go for a walk. I found that having something to force myself to get up and do, it got my body going and got me to start doing things again quicker than when I sat and moped.

"I’m also a horrendous person for the side-line because I would feel like I’m missing the craic on the pitch. At the start of the week after treatment, I would always say to put me on the sub bench and we’ll take it easy and see how it goes but by the time the match was on, I would be begging the coach to let me on. Even when I felt really, really bad, there was always someone on the team to cheer me up and ask me how I am. I loved that the girls were always there.”

The City of Derry Rugby Club organised a breast cancer awareness day, where everyone wore something pink while they played and then they had an information session with the Pink Ladies. The team were playing a match against Omagh, who also got involved on the day.

“The Pink Ladies had a great torso and I was able to show people what cancer I have and the Ladies were sharing their own stories as well as the signs to look for. Everyone brought in something baked and we won the match too so it was great! I got a yellow card that day, too, which gave us all a good laugh!

"I’m not sure what exactly motivated me to keep playing but it’s a little bit the girls, a little bit of love for the sport, a little bit of my competitive nature, and it’s a little bit of not wanting chemo to win. I didn’t want to be the sick person. We’d already been locked up for year in 2020 so I didn’t want to be locked up for another year not talking to anyone. I did plenty of research myself and my surgeon gave me the go-ahead. Research shows that doing exercise while getting chemo helps your body to recover quicker, helps prevent muscle wastage and so many other health benefits.”

Amelia runs the wedding and event venue Dunmore Gardens and she also continued to work throughout her treatment.

"The beauty of life since Covid is that a lot of us can work from home now and keep going and that’s what I was able to do. It wasn’t always pretty and most of the time I only felt 50 percent myself. The other times, I thought I felt 100% myself but, looking back, I wasn’t at all.

"This is my cancer journey and everyone else's journey is different. The disease itself is different for everyone with different treatments so not everyone would be able to exercise how I did through this. It was a real source of frustration for me that the doctors weren’t able to tell me what to expect before chemo because they didn’t know my body was going to react to it. It all depends on how you are as a person and what your disease is like. This is just my journey and how I dealt with it.”

Amelia will soon begin radiotherapy treatment to ensure the cancer is completely gone and she has no plans of stopping her rugby training any time soon. She wants everyone to ‘know their body’ and be aware of cancer signs because ‘it could happen to anyone’.