Catriona lives with her husband, Niall, and is mum to four children, twins Enda and Cormac (6), Conan (4), and Shannon, remembered with great love. In 2025, Catriona was diagnosed with breast cancer.

On Tuesday 17th March, Catriona and her husband Niall, alongside their family and friends, will be taking part in the SPAR Craic 10k to give back to two charities who have supported their family. Catriona is sharing her family’s story to raise vital funds in support of our services.

Niall and I live in Belfast with our three boys and our dog, Flo. Our little girl, Shannon, was sadly stillborn at 35 weeks in August 2018.

In terms of breast cancer, I have always been breast aware. My mum has the BRCA gene and she was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 11. My younger sister got tested for the gene when she was quite young. Her test came back positive for the gene, and she opted to have risk-reducing surgery in 2015.

I didn’t get tested but was voluntarily part of a family history clinic and had yearly MRIs, mammograms if needed, and biopsies if ever required.

Everybody thinks the same, it’ll never happen to me.

I went for the yearly MRIs and the breast care nurses from the family history clinic kept in contact to see how I was getting on, and whether I had thought about a possible preventative mastectomy.

Our twins, Cormac and Enda, were born in December 2019. I went for my yearly MRI and got a call back to say they needed to do a mammogram. The boys were only four months old. They said it could be nothing, maybe just after-effects of birth and hormones settling. After a biopsy they put a little titanium clip in my breast to mark the biopsy site for future checks, and I carried on with life. Then Conan came along. The boys hadn’t even turned two when he was born.

Not long after Conan turned one, my mum was diagnosed with secondary cancer. I decided I was going to get the gene test. It was a simple blood test.

In the middle of August 2023, it was confirmed I had the BRCA gene. Niall and I talked about whether I should have preventative surgery. Conan wasn’t even two, he still needed me to lift him. It didn’t feel fair on him or my other two boys to have a major operation at that time. One morning in November 2024 in the shower I felt something that didn’t feel right. It was a lump bigger than a pea, you couldn’t see it physically, but if you pressed, you could feel it. I kept thinking, is there really something there? I had a routine MRI coming up in a week or two so didn’t contact the GP. Once I knew the lump was there, it became an obsession. I kept poking at it.

I was heading out to my work Christmas lunch when the postman arrived with my MRI results. They wanted to see me. On the 20th of December, I went to hospital and had a mammogram and biopsy. That Christmas, I decided we weren’t refusing a single invitation. Any time someone invited us anywhere, we went. On New Year’s Eve, I got a phone call to say I had an appointment early January 2025 to see a consultant. They told me the consultant’s name. I googled it and realised he was a breast surgeon.

On the 6th of January, I went to the hospital with Niall.

“I’m really sorry, you have breast cancer.”

I was referred to Belfast City Hospital. My surgeon had such good humour and made us feel at ease. I had a double mastectomy and reconstruction on the 20th of February 2025. The surgery was seven hours long, and I got out of hospital the next day.

Before I went in for surgery, I’d filled my bedside locker with sweets for the boys so that when they came home to me the focus wasn’t on me, it was on the Kinder Eggs and Haribos in the drawer next to me. The next morning, the drains were sitting on the bedside locker. Cormac lifted one up and said, “Mummy, what’s this?” and before I could answer he said, “Mummy… is this because you drink too much coffee? Is that all the coffee coming out?” I don’t even drink coffee! I’ve no idea where he got it from, but I just said “yes, it is” and let it be. From then on, every day they wanted to check how much coffee was in it.

The hardest part was the baby, I couldn’t pick him up.

We just got through it. Recovery, the routines, managing the drains, all of it.

After the surgery, I contacted Cancer Fund for Children after someone overheard me telling a friend about the surgery, the recovery and the soreness, and getting back to normal for the kids. This lady asked if I had heard of Daisy Lodge. I said no, and she mentioned Cancer Fund for Children. I knew about Cancer Fund for Children as I had taken part in a skydive fundraiser for the charity years ago. She told me about Daisy Lodge, and that it’s not just for children with cancer. It’s also for parents who have cancer and their families.

Filling out the referral form was quite cathartic. I cried the whole time writing it.

My main concern wasn’t me, it was Niall. After everything we’d been through, losing Shannon and the grief, and then the shock of a cancer diagnosis, people asked how the kids are, how I am… but no one seemed to ask ‘how’s Niall?’

I was always worried if he was ok? I needed to know he was alright too then I could settle a bit, and he constantly reassured me that he was.

My 40th birthday was in June, and we got booked into Daisy Lodge that very month. We had a great time, met all the families, and it was brilliant. The kids loved the room, loved the toys, loved the little tricycles. They can be fussy eaters, but they ate everything that evening. I just thought, this is amazing, the kids thought the place was amazing too.

On the first night, Cormac came down with a bug, so we unfortunately had to cut our stay short. The staff packed us a full breakfast for the road the next morning. They invited us back that September. The kids were delighted. We met Cat and Esther again, and the staff remembered the kids. It felt like a home from home. Niall really enjoyed it too, getting to relax and have fun with the kids. We took the kids to the Slieve Donard to go swimming, and they had an absolute ball. The staff packed us a picnic for lunch, and they thought of everything, even a flask with hot water for a cup of tea. The boys still talk about the view and the big forest. Conan was obsessed with a farmyard toy, Santa got him one this Christmas. The staff could not do enough, it’s a special place.

You could never pay for something like that.

My mum joined me on a health and wellbeing break at Daisy Lodge later in the year. She loved it. She had reflexology for the first time in her life. She got something out of it too, and that meant a lot to me. We’ve also been to a couple of the fun days at W5, and the kids absolutely loved them.

Niall and I decided we wanted to give back. We’d had so much support, so much love from people we didn’t even know. Over Christmas, Niall saw the SPAR Craic 10k advertised and that Cancer Fund for Children were the 2026 charity partner. I don’t like running, but I’m up for a challenge. We mentioned it to a few friends to ask if they’d consider sponsoring us, and so many came back to say they wanted to run it with us. I shared a post on social media on New Year’s Eve, exactly a year on from the phone call inviting me to the appointment that turned our lives upside down. Up until sharing this post, we hadn’t told anybody outside of our close circle about my diagnosis.

I felt ready to share my story to raise awareness, and to raise as much money as possible for the two charities we’re running for, Cancer Fund for Children and Pretty ‘n Pink.

I hope my experience can encourage others facing this road to say yes to the support.

Don’t be, as I was at the beginning, the person who thinks someone else deserves it more than you. I never, ever wanted to be the recipient of a charity. But I am, I was, and I would never look back. Not ever. It wasn’t just about me, it was about the kids, it was about my husband, and even my mother, who has had her own experience of cancer.

And when they benefitted, it helped me, because everyone loves to see someone they love being cared for.

Help us be there for more families like Catriona’s by supporting her Craic 10k challenge today!