Inspirational woman with triple positive breast cancer creates My Pink Planner business to help other cancer patients

Kelly Wilkinson has set up her own business called My Pink Planner to help cancer patients organise their appointments, information leaflets and anything they may need to track.

The 44-year-old from Milton was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021 after finding a lump, and she has had to undergo a lot of treatment and she has still got a long road ahead of her – but she wanted to use her experience to help others.

Kelly said: ‘I was just doing the routine checks in the shower and I found a lump and as you should do, I contacted my GP to check. It was on September 17 that I went to the doctor and they referred me to the fast-track breast services at QA.

‘On September 30, I was diagnosed with triple positive breast cancer so I was positive for oestrogen, progesterone and HER2.

‘I am quite a pragmatic person so I am able to keep my emotions aside – I think because I found the lump myself, I always knew I was going to be told I had breast cancer, the only reason being that I could see how the skin was changing.’

She had to have a lumpectomy and reconstruction as well as having four lymph nodes removed, one of which was found to be cancerous. The mum of one started adjuvant cancer treatment on January 10, 2022, which was then followed by six months of chemotherapy, two weeks of radiotherapy and she is in the process of a 12-month stint of immunotherapy.

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Kelly lost her mum at the age of 11 and although it was not due to cancer, her son was 11 when she found out she had cancer so she decided to opt for the most amount of treatment to reduce her risk of getting cancer again.

She added: ‘I was given the option of a short amount of chemotherapy, a week’s radiotherapy and a short amount of immunotherapy so it would have been all done and dusted in six months rather than 18 months.

‘I said to my doctor that I lost my mum when I was 11 years old which is the same age as my son, totally unrelated circumstances but I don’t want him to live without me, and I asked him what he would do and he said said he would give it everything to make sure we do as much as we can to make sure that I recover.’

Kelly has created planners which are specifically for cancer patients and there is space for people to track treatment side effects and to keep everything in one place.

‘The reason I started My Pink Planner is because starting the journey you get such an awful lot of information thrown at you. You have to go for mammograms, scans, MRIs and CT scans, you have got appointments with services, breast care nurses – there is so much information that is given. I found that a standard diary wasn’t enough for the amount of information.’

To go to Kelly’s website click here.