Before all of this, I had a great life with my husband. Our sex life was amazing. So amazing, in fact, that 12 weeks after our first child was born, I got pregnant again.

Everything changed when I found the lump. My youngest was only six months old and each time I tried to breastfeed, my breasts just bled and bled. Each time I went to the midwives or health visitors I felt like they were saying 'try harder'. But when I found the lump, I thought, 'I'm not the problem', in so many ways it was a relief.

Once the relief was gone, then came the fear. I was 31, had two children under two and I had a very severe form of cancer. The long process of getting better took three years and my treatment included a double mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, herceptin - the works. I was also put into a medically-induced menopause.

In the space of a few years, I went from a young, party-going 31 year-old to, essentially, a 70 year-old.

Everything was dried, cut off, I was bald, spotty, I was as wide as I was tall - you wouldn't recognise me in pictures.

I felt like I couldn't speak to anyone about it. They sent me to a cancer group and everyone who attended was over 60. I thought: 'you've had a good innings, I haven't'.

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My sex life with my husband went from hero to zero. We had no sex life whatsoever. Due to the medically-induced menopause, I was fat, grumpy and moody. It didn't put me in the mood for sex. My husband also didn't get it, he was completely oblivious. I remember he took me to Brighton, to celebrate the end of my chemotherapy. I was completely bald and sweating and all he wanted to do was have sex. I thought, 'what the hell is going through your head? Are you a pervert with a thing for bald, fat, pasty women?'

He wanted to have sex because he loved me, and I wanted to throw myself off the pier because I felt so repulsive.

For so long I thought he was strange, or maybe even just felt sorry for me, but you know what? He wanted to have sex with me because he loves me. Even when I had no tits, and they had filled my skin with water to stretch it, he wanted to be with me.

Losing my love of sex was honestly like a bereavement. And the healing process was really hard. I don't know how I got stronger and learned to love myself again, I think for me it was just time. But it also helped when my hair grew back and I had proper implants put in. I slowly realised that my husband wasn't going to leave me for someone else.

About four years ago my periods came back, I thought I was dying, that I had another form of cancer that made you bleed out of there. Somehow my body just bounced back and that really helped.

I had just felt suspended and very alone because I didn't feel like a woman, and I didn't feel like I was in my early thirties.

I felt so isolated. It's horrible, all of your friends are getting on with their lives and wearing bikinis and going on holiday, whilst I felt suspended - not like a woman and certainly not like I was in my early thirties.

Nothing I read helped me, when I did pick up a magazine that spoke about being young with cancer, it was so serious. I needed a laugh.

I remember coming down one day and laughing so hard I said, 'I just look like a fat Barbie, look at my blonde hair and my big fake tits without nipples. That's me, Fat Barbie'.

Now, seven years after that first diagnosis I feel back. I mean, I have wobbles , but no more than any other girl has wobbles.

I think it all taught me how strong I was. I couldn't be helped in traditional ways, so I had to figure it all out as me.

I would say to myself back then, 'don't walk into that cancer therapy group, it will make you feel like sh**.'

In fact, I walked out on two therapists.

What I did end up doing was getting hypnotised for my panic attacks. I had a glass of wine after every chemo session and I went to Ibiza and partied each summer.

I did it all as me, that's who my husband fancies and that's who my children love.

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Daisy Murray
Digital Fashion Editor

Daisy Murray is the Digital Fashion Editor at ELLE UK, spotlighting emerging designers, sustainable shopping, and celebrity style. Since joining in 2016 as an editorial intern, Daisy has run the gamut of fashion journalism - interviewing Molly Goddard backstage at London Fashion Week, investigating the power of androgynous dressing and celebrating the joys of vintage shopping.