Asda Tickled Pink storyteller Avter joins volunteers raising money and awareness

When Avter Dhadwal was first diagnosed with breast cancer as a young mother at the age of 22 she found the whole experience both lonely and terrifying and felt very isolated within her community. So when in 2024, at the age of 56, she was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer she was determined things would be different this time.

Rather than bottling up her experiences and trying to hide the fact she has breast cancer, Avtar is sharing her story to help others like her feel less alone.

"I’d just had my second child, I was 22, and I found a lump," said Avter. "I kind of ignored it for a little while, but my husband said at the time, "Can you just get it looked at?" It was a hard lump above the breast. So I went to the doctors who initially said it’s most probably milk ducts, and I’d just had a baby, so they put it down to hormones and having a child."

A few weeks later Avter noticed that it had grown so she went back to her doctor.

"He referred me to my local hospital where I met with a consultant. He decided to do a biopsy on me. He again also reassured me that it was milk ducts, nothing to be worried about. They did a biopsy and I was sent home.

"A couple of weeks later I was at home and I got a phone call from my doctor who actually said to me, "Are you at home?" I said yes. He goes, "Okay, well, I’ll be there in half an hour."

So as soon as I put the phone down, I said to my husband and my mother-in-law at the time was there, I just said, "The doctor’s coming round, I’ve got breast cancer." Only because I couldn’t think of any other reason why my doctor would come home to give me a home visit.

"He came, he told me I had breast cancer, and weirdly enough, my lump when I’d first found it was really small, about a few centimetres, but within a month or maybe a little bit more, it had grown to golf ball size."

Avter says her family discouraged her from talking about her health issues with anyone outside the family - or even within it.

"There was a stigma around it. It was definitely a cultural thing, I found, because at that particular time when I went through it, it was put under the carpet. Asian people like to keep things within their own households, but something like this they certainly wouldn’t have wanted anyone to know. I think it was a fear of the unknown. I think they knew nothing, for them the word cancer always meant terminal.

"I focused on just getting on with being a mum. And trying to prove my family wrong because the minute they heard the word cancer, I think they literally wrote me off. It was, ‘She’s got cancer’, it was not a nice time. It wasn’t very supportive."

Avter had a lumpectomy followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

"I found it tough. I had a choice of two chemos at the time: one where you lose your hair and one where you don’t. I chose the one where you don’t lose your hair because my hair was really long. It's long now but back then I could sit on it, it was that long. The only time I remember really crying is the night second chemo in, I came home, went in the bath, washed my hair and it clumped. I just dried myself and went to my mother-in-law. I think that was my saddest point.

"The next day I went to look for wigs. I went to somewhere in London and my sister-in-law went with me and I got a wig. So nobody knew."

Avter was struggling with the side effects of treatment, the aftershock of the diagnosis and bringing up two children and, without the support she needed, actually considered giving up chemotherapy.

"I did give up on chemo after three months because it was making me tired. I’d lost weight, I didn’t have any energy left and I had two little ones. So I got to a point where I said, "I can’t do the chemo anymore." So I took a two-month break where everyone started to get concerned that I had no intention of going back on it at the time because it was just too tiresome. And it was my doctor who rang me up and visited me at home again – brilliant doctor – and he just said to me, "So Avter, you need to get onto this." I said, "I can’t do it anymore. I feel 80" and I was just 22. I said, "I can’t get upstairs, I can’t get downstairs and I’ve got two little ones." I did have a lot of help with my children, but I want to be their mum. And he just said, "So you don’t want to see them grow up then, do you?" And I said, "Of course I do." He goes, "Well, if you don’t get on with that chemo you’re not going to." Weirdly enough, I finished my chemo!"

Avter, now an office manager in Rochester, was so focused on bringing up her two young boys and getting through her treatment that the diagnosis didn't really hit her until much later.

"Five years later, I just broke down in tears. It was a delayed reaction and I was just sitting there one day and I just thought, "I had cancer. I had breast cancer." I was scared, but I didn’t let myself be scared at the time and I thought, "I could’ve died.

"I just broke down one time and then I went back to my doctor and he said, "I wondered how long it’d take for it to hit you." Because he said to me, "You were so strong all the way through it." And he just said, "I knew it’d hit you," but it was five years. I was crying, I was upset, to think I got through all of that. I don’t know if it was relief. It was maybe when I got the all clear, maybe that was the trigger."

Avter found another lump in 2024 and initially dismissed it, but her husband Tom urged her to get it checked out. She'd had a mammogram within the past year which was clear, but because of her history she had another scan at the Breast Cancer Unit in Medway, Kent.

"It was all done really quickly. They have a one-stop shop in my area in the hospital. You go in, you speak to a consultant, they examine you, then you go in for a mammogram and then an ultrasound. I had a biopsy the same day.

"A couple of weeks later I got a phone call to go and see my consultant again and I’d got myself prepared because I thought it’s most probably something now. And I’d got myself psychologically and mentally prepared for chemotherapy, radiotherapy and another lumpectomy.

"I thought, "I did it then. I can do it now. The kids are older. I haven’t got those same concerns. So I can do it." So mentally I was prepared. What I wasn’t prepared for was when she said, "Well, you can’t have radiotherapy again. They don’t do radiotherapy in the same area twice." And she said, "And because of the position of the lump this time, we’re going to give you a mastectomy." I think that floored me."

Avter was diagnosed with primary breast cancer, for the second time. She had a single mastectomy and reconstruction on her right side and, later, a breast reduction on her left side.

This time she shared her cancer experiences with her family and they supported her through treatment.

"My eldest said, "Oh Mum, didn’t you have that before?" I said, "Yeah, I know." He goes, "But you’ll get through it because you got through it the first time?" I said, "Absolutely."

"They were part of this process this time. It brought us closer in a different way because my boys are now a generation on and they’re very chilled with what they say, you know. I’ve always been a little bit more cautious and I hold back because that’s cultural. But I can now say "boobs" and things like that to them and it’s not a big deal. I thought we were close before, but this brought us closer."

Avter has also met women going through similar experiences through Breast Cancer Now. And she's attended Moving Forward, a course funded by Asda's Tickled Pink campaign. The course enabled women like Avter to meet regularly, share their experiences and help each other.

"The first time I had cancer there was nothing, no support, but this time I felt I’ve had a lot of support, not just from family and friends, because I will talk to people about it because I think it’s important, but then resources are out there that weren’t out there before. Moving Forward was brilliant. They hold sessions, face-to-face, and they have volunteers that come in and host the groups. And through there I met three other ladies who’ve been through breast cancer and we keep in contact through our WhatsApp group and we meet every three months and we support each other.

"It’s been lovely to be able to talk about it. It’s lovely to go on the Breast Cancer Now website to look at all the resources. I’m on it all the time!

"I’m on Exemestane, which is an estrogen blocker, and initially I was on Letrozole. And it’s just nice to think, "Am I alone going through these symptoms?" but you see other people’s stories on there and the forums on there are fab. I like hearing of people’s success stories."

Avter is also planning to take part in the Tickled Pink bucket collections at her local Asda in Gillingham, Kent, where she's a regular customer.

"It's important to talk about. I think if we don’t talk about it, it’s not going to go away."