Sammy-Jo Brandon was so desperate to be a mother that she delayed life-saving cancer treatment, which could have left her infertile, to undergo the first stage of IVF. It’s a decision that may have cost Sammy-Jo her life.
Her heartbroken mother Kim, 64, a retired office worker from Hornchurch, Essex, here reveals the despair she and husband Matthew, 63, a retired toolmaker, felt at their daughter’s choice and the steps they have taken since to use their grief to help others through sammyjobrandonfoundation.org.uk.
‘If I can’t have kids, I don’t want to live.’ That was my daughter’s reaction when doctors urged her to start chemotherapy, having been diagnosed with breast cancer aged just 26.
She was adamant she first wanted to take steps to preserve her fertility, even if that meant delaying the chemotherapy start date by months.
As terrifying as it was for us as her parents, it wasn’t a surprise.
Every bone in my Sammy-Jo’s body was a maternal one. She had longed to be a mother since she was a teenager – and whenever friends or family had a baby, she would tenderly cuddle them.
It was clear she was a natural and I told her countless times: ‘You’ll make a great mum one day, Sammy-Jo.’
She had even started buying babygrows, tops and bootees over the years in anticipation, which she stored in boxes and bags in her bedroom.
But in September 2016, while Sammy-Jo was attending a friend’s wedding in Cyprus, she found a lump in her breast.
I’d had a lump removed when I was 25 which turned out to be benign, so I tried to reassure her it would be the same for her. I never imagined for a moment that it would be anything serious.
Kim and Matthew Brandon’s daughter, Sammy-Jo, delayed her cancer treatment as she desperately wanted the chance to become a mother
Sammy-Jo was diagnosed with breast cancer after spotting a lump while attending a friend’s wedding in Cyprus
Kim with Sammy-Jo during her battle with cancer. Sammy-Jo was petrified chemotherapy would leave her infertile
When she got back a few days later Sammy-Jo went to the GP and was referred to hospital for an ultrasound scan, which she had a few weeks later.
Her partner Jack took her in a week later for the results. Sammy-Jo rang me at work soon after in tears, with the devastating news that it was cancer. What’s more, the tumour already measured 8mm and was a triple-negative cancer, an especially aggressive form of the disease.
I was in complete and utter shock. And while the doctor had tried to reassure Sammy-Jo, telling her they had caught it early, she went in to panic mode.
As it was such an aggressive cancer, she was told they needed to act fast to prevent it from spreading.
Sammy-Jo was booked in to have surgery to remove the lump two weeks later in December 2016, and we were told she needed to start chemotherapy treatment straight after.
But Sammy-Jo also wanted to be a mother – and was petrified the chemotherapy was going to leave her infertile.
She wanted to freeze embryos before she underwent any treatment.
Her father Matthew didn’t want her to delay treatment for a minute – all that mattered was that Sammy-Jo got better. But she was adamant.
Kim says she could understand her daughter’s resistance to starting chemo
Sammy-Jo had always wanted to be a mother and often bought baby clothes in preparation
She was godmother to many of her friends’ babies and would tenderly cuddle them
I knew what it meant to be a mother. If someone had told me I could never have children, I would have been devastated. So while I wanted her to start the chemotherapy, I could understand her resistance.
Sammy-Jo pushed on with her plans and a week after the surgery, started IVF treatment with Jack, who she’d been with for four years.
It all took time – first she had to have drugs to stimulate her ovaries to produce eggs. Then they had to be removed and fertilised in a test tube.
It took six weeks in all, but after the first time they only managed to get two embryos.
‘It’s not enough for two children mum,’ she insisted. She had read that on average it takes two-and-a-half embryos to get one child as it doesn’t always work first time. She wanted at least two children, so she wanted to do a second egg collection.
And again this took another six weeks.
We – and her doctors – were desperate for her to start her chemotherapy.
We were blunt and told her: ‘We don’t want you to die.’ But Sammy-Jo was determined. ‘Just one more mum,’ she promised.
So she did the daily injections, and her eggs were collected and fertilised and placed in storage. She was happy she’d got enough and frozen her future hope of being a mother.
Finally, she started the chemotherapy in January 2017 – more than three months after the doctors said she should begin.
It was tough. She was exhausted and lost her hair. But she still always had a smile for us.
It finished in April 2017, and the doctors were optimistic.
There was no sign of the cancer, and we finally thought we could put it behind us and start life again.
The oncologist had said to wait at least a year after treatment before considering implanting any of the frozen embryos.
But now she was more chilled about conceiving as she had ‘insurance’ there with her frozen embryos.
Her periods started again later that year. But there were worrying signs that something was not right.
Months after her treatment ended Sammy-Jo was still exhausted and suffering from ‘chemo brain’, where the effects of chemotherapy make your brain feel fuzzy.
She also started having headaches. As a precaution she was given a brain scan at the end of 2017, but doctors said everything looked fine, and we had a lovely family Christmas.
But in February 2018, Sammy-Jo was helping a friend in a florist putting together the Valentine’s Day flower orders when they called us.
‘You had better come quickly, Sammy-Jo has passed out,’ she said. Her friend had called an ambulance and we went straight to hospital.
Doctors said she’d had a seizure. As she’d had a brain scan a couple of months before, they felt it wasn’t necessary to give her another one. Instead, they gave her anti-seizure medication and sent her home.
Three days later, we were downstairs in the kitchen when we heard her scream upstairs (she was staying with us at the time).
We found her lying on her bed, with her body jerking. She’d had another seizure. I ran to call 999 while Matthew held her.
The operator told us to hold her head, and to try to stop her biting down on her tongue while we waited for the ambulance – which came in 12 minutes and took her to hospital.
This time they took her for a scan – and it showed devastating news. The cancer had come back in her brain and lungs.
Doctors discussed possible treatment options of radiotherapy and brain surgery.
But two weeks later, another scan showed she had several rapidly growing tumours and the main one wasn’t accessible by surgery. Sammy-Jo was told she had just eight weeks left to live.
‘I’m sorry, there is nothing we can do,’ said the doctor.
Me, Jack, Matthew and her brother Daniel all sat by her hospital bed and sobbed together.
After everything she had been through, our beautiful daughter was going to be taken from us – and we couldn’t bear it.
Even though she was terminal, Sammy-Jo was given surgery a few days later to remove one tumour at the back of her head which would have otherwise affected her ability to walk.
Sammy-Jo wanted to spend her last weeks at home and so she did. She remained amazingly strong – her thoughts were for her friends and family… and, of course, their children.
She was a godmother to many of her friends’ babies and in the weeks she had left she parcelled up gifts for them – of the baby clothes she had bought for her own future children, and her clothes and perfumes to give them something to remember her by.
She wrote birthday cards for them all too for the following year.
Sammy-Jo planned her own funeral, which she wanted to be a celebration-of-life party. She accepted she was on borrowed time, and planning all this gave her some purpose.
She passed away eight weeks later, exactly as the doctors predicted.
She never got to be a mother, but she made us promise to help children in need.
‘I can’t have kids, but I want you to protect others for me,’ she said.
And we have been true to her word. Just after she died we set up the Sammy-Jo Foundation, which raises funds to help children with cancer.
We hope to hit the £500,000 mark for our fundraising this year. She would have loved it and been so proud.
Jack, with whom we still have a great relationship, helps us run the charity and we class him as another son.
Tragically their embryos had to be destroyed two years after Sammy-Jo died – as those are the rules. Jack was distraught, and so were we. It felt like the end of an era, and the last bit of Sammy-Jo had gone.
If Sammy-Jo had started chemotherapy straight away, then she may have still been with us today. The doctors told us that the first 12 weeks after surgery were the most important time to start chemotherapy as the cancer cells are most receptive to the treatment.
But I know she wouldn’t have changed her decision. Being a mother was the most important thing for her.
I’d do anything to have my daughter back, but now Matthew and I focus on saving other lives, in memory of hers. And we will do that for as long as we live.
