Pink Ribbon Ambassador Lorna Subritzky opens up about going through breast cancer treatment

Long-time broadcaster and friend of The Hits, Coast radio host Lorna Subritzky is in the process of treatment for her second breast cancer diagnosis.

As it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, she joined Estelle on The Hits’ 3pm Pick Up to candidly share her story.

"I had a 38-millimeter tumor removed and also 18 lymph nodes, one of [which] was cancerous,” Lorna explained.

"Now I'm going through chemotherapy. I'm on a weekly cycle scheduled for a Friday afternoon [Fridays] used to be wine o’clock, now it’s chemo o’clock," she added. "So that's my weekly hamster wheel at the moment.

"Touching wood, I'm five weeks through the 12 weeks of this weekly cycle, and I seem to be doing pretty well physically. I'm bald as a balded thing, you know, that it's been a little tough. The eyebrows and the eyelashes have just gone this week, so they're all drawn on. But, no, physically really, pretty lucky."

Before she discovered she had breast cancer, Lorna admits that she had gotten a little complacent after overcoming an early stage of breast cancer 6 years earlier.

"I had a lumpectomy and radiotherapy six years ago. You have annual checkups after that, and I had my five-year one and [was] kind of [like] ‘woohoo’ and broke open the champagne and kind of wrongly thought, ‘Oh, that's it. Move on. I've beaten breast cancer and now I'm a pink ribbon ambassador. Great.’

"[I] didn't really think too much of it until my delayed mammogram back in May and two weeks before that I felt a lump. So I already knew there was something, but I'd had lumps in the past have been biopsied, and have been fine. So even then, I didn't think for the life of me that lightning would strike twice."

Lorna revealed that just being open about her experiences has helped her process what she’s going through, especially when she finds things overwhelming.

"I've always been a sharer, it has helped me, but it also, I'm hoping it might help other people as well,” she said.

"Last week I did have a little bit of a mental speed wobble. I kind of had that thing of what if I'm doing all this and it doesn't work?

"I think I was probably overdue for that speed wobble, and it was a pretty harrowing few days, but I do want to talk about that as well because people are saying, ‘Oh, you're so chipper’, and I just explain that I'm not always. It did kind of overwhelm me last week."

Lorna also talked about the importance of mammograms, and breast self-checks like 'the clock' and 'lawnmowing'.

"With both my brushes with breast cancer, they've been caught early enough to be treated," Lorna said.

"Thanks to mammograms, you're free every two years from 45 to 69, a third of women eligible aren't on that register. So get yourself on the register, get your mums, your aunties, your sisters, your friends."

Listen to Lorna’s full interview with Estelle above, and check out her podcast episodes on We Need To Talk with Toni Street – available on iHeartRadio – below: