LIZ O’RIORDAN: In 2015, aged 40, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to undergo chemo myself. And I realised, even as a doctor, I’d had no idea what my patients had been going through.

As a breast cancer surgeon, I would speak to my patients about chemotherapy, to tell them that it’s a given to try to stop cancer coming back, or sometimes to shrink a tumour before surgery. That there are always side effects. That hair loss is virtually a given.

There’s also nausea and feeling too rotten to work. ‘It won’t be fun,’ I’d add. And that was that.

Then, in 2015, aged 40, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to undergo chemotherapy myself.

And I realised, even as a doctor, I’d had no idea what my patients had actually been going through.

I knew I was meant to feel ill, but how ill? What was normal? What wasn’t? And what should I do about it?

Source: Ex-cancer surgeon reveals how she coped with chemo after own diagnosis