Co Antrim mum’s road to recovery after 'one in a million' cancer diagnosis

A Northern Ireland mum says she feels very lucky to have a second chance at life after being diagnosed with a one in a million rare cancer.

Back in late October 2023, mum-of-two Brenda Kernoghan developed what she initially thought was a tummy bug.

Her subsequent road from diagnosis to recovery led to her undergoing what's referred to as “the mother of all surgeries”, during which some of her organs were removed and heated chemotherapy applied directly inside her abdomen.

She told Belfast Live: "I came home from work on a Tuesday evening and I was very sick with vomiting and diarrhoea and I thought it was a tummy bug. On the Wednesday, I had very bad pains in my stomach and I couldn't really move, So I just had to stay in bed. By the Thursday and Friday, I still wasn't feeling great.

"By the Saturday morning I decided to take myself off to A&E as I wasn't getting any better . So off I headed to A&E at Antrim Area Hospital and I was there for quite a long time, but during that whole time I was getting treatments like X-rays,scans and bloods taken. There was never any period of time that I was just sitting there as they were constantly keeping a check on me but I was there for the whole day and evening.

"By very late that night I just knew at that stage that I was going to be admitted. One of the doctors came in and said they were going to see if they could get me a CT scan because they thought my appendix had maybe ruptured. Just close to midnight I got the results that my appendix had ruptured and that I was going to be rushed into emergency surgery in the morning."

At 9 o'clock the following morning Brenda had the surgery and her appendix removed. She stayed in hospital for five days due to a suspected infection which meant she wasn't allowed home.

"They kept saying to me 'Brenda, you have got an infection but we don't know where it is so we can't let you go home. I was very shocked because I felt amazing and it was the first time I felt really good in a long, long time. My bloods kept showing there was this infection but eventually I was allowed home but told that I needed to come back during the week a couple of times to get bloods taken," she recalled.

"Then all of a sudden the infection went and I had so much energy, more than I had before. The only time I had any sort of symptoms would have been the August of that same year when I was very tired coming home from work at night, but I was putting that down to the menopause, working too hard and just getting older. But looking back now, I think that was the tumour starting to grow."

Eight weeks after she left hospital Brenda was contacted and told that pathologists in Antrim Area Hospital had discovered a cancerous tumour in her appendix. Appendix cancer, also known as appendiceal cancer, is a rare disease, affecting approximately one to two people in a million annually.

Brenda recalled: "That was the start of my introduction to an absolutely fantastic surgeon, Doctor Etain McGuinness, who was amazing. I saw her and she told me I had a cancerous tumour in my appendix and that's what caused it to burst. She said that when my appendix ruptured the cancerous cells from the tumour will have spread everywhere all around my stomach and into other organs."

Brenda was faced with having to undergo extensive cancer preventive surgery, known as cytoreductive surgery, and HIPEC chemotherapy, which is not available in Northern Ireland. She had to travel to the Peritoneal Malignancy Institute at Basingstoke Hospital, which specialises in the surgical treatment of patients with tumours and cancer that has spread to the peritoneum.

She added: "When somebody actually says to you, 'you have cancer' it was all such a big shock because I had never felt this good in my life. Over the coming months, I kept asking the surgeon if this is absolutely necessary and do I really have to do it? She said 'yes, because if you don't, Brenda, in 5 or 10 years time, you're going to be very, very sick' so I hadn't really any choice at this stage.

"Some of those statistics of the outcome were very harsh. Whether you made it through the surgery or not, it would last between 8 to 10 hours, maybe longer. I had to have a psychology interview to make sure I was aware of what's involved and to make sure I was mentally prepared. It was a very worrying time - every morning I woke up it was the first thing I thought about. I thought about it all day long and when going to bed at night."

Brenda underwent the eight hour operation on March 8 2024 which also involved a high tech form of chemotherapy as she explained: "It's actually nicknamed the mother of all surgeries. They removed quite a few organs and the full lining of my stomach.

"The chemotherapy is heated up to 42 degrees and it's pumped into the stomach. That alone at 42 degrees is fatal for the human body so they have to flush your body with litres and litres of ice cold water. There was a risk or heart attack or stroke as your body might not be able to cope with all of that going on."

Afterwards Brenda spent three weeks in hospital but also contracted Covid-19 during her stay.

Throughout her whole journey, Brenda, who will turn 60 in June, was supported at every moment by her husband, Justin, Belfast Live's photographer and their two daughters, Rachel, 21 and 18-year-old Rebecca along with her family, friends and work colleagues . I always stayed positive, although at times it was difficult and I was always grateful that I was able to have this surgery.

Justin recently won second place at the AIB Press Photographer of the Year Awards in the Reportage category for his images entitled 'In Sickness and in Health', which centred around Brenda's illness.

Over a year on she feels incredibly lucky and is also full of praise for the health system for the outstanding care she received. Recent CT scans have been very positive and Brenda is now fully recovered and looking forward to the future.

Her next milestone was to get back to work as a Retail Support Development Manager for Concern Worldwide, which she did within three months and to be able to fulfil a long-time wish to attend Wimbledon in July, something she also ticked off her bucket list with the help of perseverance.

Brenda added: "Honestly the NHS the whole way through was amazing. It does get a bashing but trust me throughout this journey the NHS was unbelievable. Every single person that I met who dealt with me or treated me did anything they could for me. They were just unbelievable.

"Ultimately this surgery was going to save my life, which it did. I will always remember just how lucky I was that the team in Antrim Hospital found the cancer and the doctors in Basingstoke for giving me this second chance. I had my annual review in January, which was a colonoscopy and CT scan, and I will have a review every year for the next five years at Antrim Area Hospital."

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