Bubbly Tracy Bartram is one of the people who helps keep Dorset Air Ambulance in the skies. Mum to Miles and Heath, former England netball player and ‘minor WAG’ – husband Vince played for Arsenal and Bournemouth – she never thought she’d get cancer. But she was wrong. After a year of gruelling treatment, Tracy tells her story.

IT'S over a year since I discovered the lump that changed my life, but I can remember everything so clearly.

It was actually Vince who noticed it, during January last year. I didn’t think too much at the time but I made an appointment with my surgery who sent me for tests at Royal Bournemouth Hospital. A month later we were called back to hear the devastating news: I had breast cancer.

You never think the dreaded ‘C’ word is going to happen to you until that day you are told in the flesh. Vince was distraught, so were our family and friends. But the doctors and breast care nurses helped; they were amazing, telling us what to expect.

They said the cancer may have spread to my lymph nodes, so I had to have additional tests and a CT scan and waiting for the results were the longest weeks of my life. I was scared but as one of my closest friends had been treated previously, I knew I could cope and I could beat it.

When the hospital gave us the wonderful news that it hadn’t spread I was so relieved, it was the first bit of good news for ages. Now all we had to do was treat the existing cancer and life would go on.

My treatment included six chemotherapy rounds over four-and-a-half months, followed by a lumpectomy, lymph-node removal and radiotherapy.

My girlfriend had explained chemotherapy and I knew I had to be strong: the doctors hadn’t told me I was going to die, so all I needed to do was get rid of this terrible disease inside me.

But there were difficult bits. The nurses asked us about the children. At first I didn’t want to tell them anything but we were advised not to hide it so the hospital explained how to tell them and gave us books to help.

We planned to do it on a certain day but funnily enough, that day never came. One evening, just before the chemotherapy, I told our eldest who had just turned seven. We just said ‘Mummy is poorly, and I need to take some medicine that will make me feel tired, but make me better.’ The youngest, who was nearly four, just smiled and said he would help me and put me to bed at night. Bless him!

I visited the hospital for chemotherapy, staying a couple of hours then coming home.

The first time I went shopping straight after and felt fine. It wasn’t until a couple of days later I started feeling sick and tired, but I had two boys who still wanted mummy to play football with them so I couldn’t sit and feel sorry for myself.

I felt if I could make sure they didn’t see how poorly I was, then it would not affect them as badly.

Vince lost his job in February 2010 but that meant he could help, sorting the kids out with school and being amazing round the house.

Then the day I’d been dreading happened. I was drying my hair, the kids were watching. But my hair was falling out on the bed behind me. We all watched as it got thinner and thinner.

Every woman’s nightmare was happening… to me.

I’d already arranged for a hairdresser friend to take the rest off while the kids were at school and for me that was probably one of the worst parts.

Hair is an important feature but strangely, it was only when I lost my eyelashes and eyebrows that I looked totally different.

When the kids returned I didn’t want them to be scared but it was a shock for them. Miles seemed more embarrassed and said, ‘Put your hat back on, Mummy.’ I think he was worried what his friends might say so I made sure I only went bald in the house.

By this time it was summer and many of my friends and family took part in the Race for Life. It was an amazing day for us all. And slowly, after four months of chemotherapy, my hair started to grow.

On September 1, I attended a cheque presentation for the Air Ambulance and dared to go hatless and on November 1, after the operation and radiotherapy, I was given the all clear!

It felt as if my life had begun again. Then Vince got a full-time job at Southampton FC. Without his support, and that of my friends, family, the DSAA team, the hospital and my two very special little boys, I would never have coped.

It’s nearly a year since I finished chemotherapy and everything looks fine. We’re planning a fantastic holiday and I’m running this year’s Race for Life and raising funds for the Oncology Department at Bournemouth Hospital. So look out for me on June 19 – I’ll be there!

l raceforlife.org