Krissy Smith was not looking for anything unusual that fateful morning – she simply stepped into the shower before work started to mentally plan out her day.
The then-29-year-old digital marketing assistant from Sydney lived a happy and active life with no reason for concern.
She had a job she loved, enjoyed working out, went on daily walks with her high-energy dog, and saw her friends and family as often as she could.
But then she looked down between lathers and noticed something off.
‘I was just in the shower and saw that my right nipple had started to invert,’ Krissy, now 31, told the Daily Mail.
‘That’s what caught my attention straight away. When I felt around that area, there was quite a large lump under the nipple. It kind of felt like a golf ball – it was really hard and really large.’
As she kept checking the area, she realised there were smaller lumps nearby, too.
‘I’d just had a full health check up with bloods and scans eight months prior, so it was a shock to me. I convinced myself it was nothing serious – just a cyst or something – I never would’ve guessed I’d be diagnosed with stage 3 cancer days later.’
The little lumps prompted Krissy to call her GP, though she had no family history of breast cancer and had always been healthy.
Her GP acted quickly, booking her in for an ultrasound right away.
From there, everything moved at a pace Krissy still finds surreal.
‘They said they wanted to do a biopsy. A few days after that I went in and they took samples,’ she recalled.
The results confirmed the worst: cancerous cells had been found.
The diagnosis was serious: stage three invasive ductal carcinoma, a type of breast cancer where the illness has spread to the lymph nodes close to the breast, the skin of the chest, or the chest wall.
Surgery was recommended almost immediately, and Krissy soon met with specialist breast surgeon Dr Stephanie Inder.
‘It was confirmed pretty quickly that I’d need surgery to have a full mastectomy of my right breast,’ she said.
‘There were multiple tumours, so the easiest and most preventative thing was to remove the whole breast.’
Within three weeks of that specialist appointment, she was in surgery.
In the lead-up, doctors ordered numerous scans to check whether the cancer had spread elsewhere, but she was given the all-clear.
Surgeons also removed 13 lymph nodes after detecting a small amount of involvement, but the margins ultimately came back clear.
‘It all went really well,’ she said.
But the surgery was only the beginning.
‘Chemo was far harder than surgery’
After two weeks of recovery, Krissy began chemotherapy – a gruelling six-month treatment that she describes as the most difficult part of the entire ordeal.
‘I found chemo way harder than surgery,’ she said.
‘Surgery felt like a walk in the park compared to chemo.’
The physical changes were immediate and confronting – with Krissy suffering through hair loss, weight gain, lethargy, and more. Just two weeks into treatment, her hair began falling out in clumps.
‘You could run a brush through it and it would just be full of hair,’ she said.
Eventually, she made the difficult decision to shave her head.
‘I went to my mum and dad’s place and Dad had already shaved his head. It was just the three of us there when he shaved mine.’
‘It was a really hard time. I had really long, thick dark brown hair and that was the part I was stressing about the most.’
Within a month she had also lost her eyebrows, eyelashes, and body hair. At the same time, her appetite vanished.
‘My taste buds had warped. Everything tasted bland and I didn’t have motivation to eat.’
The fatigue was relentless – but Krissy said she was thankful she didn’t experience nausea as well.
Trying to stay normal
Despite the physical toll, Krissy was determined to maintain as much normality as possible.
She continued working throughout treatment with the support of her employer, where she has worked for six years.
‘My workplace was amazing,’ she said.
‘They set me up with a work-from-home arrangement. I worked part-time hours and it really helped keep my mind focused on something other than my health.’
She also kept exercising with the help of her aunt, a personal trainer.
After chemotherapy sessions, they would meet at an outdoor gym for gentle resistance training.
‘Moving your body and resistance training are really important for bone health and recovery,’ she said.
‘We’d just do a really light 20-minute workout.’
A young woman confronting cancer
For Krissy, the emotional impact of cancer as a young woman in her 20s was profound.
‘It was a really dark time being a young person and having to re-learn what it means to be resilient,’ she said.
She also struggled with how dramatically her appearance changed during treatment.
‘I had always been someone who hadn’t really had to think about fitting in or getting attention,’ she said.
‘Suddenly I was in this vessel where I didn’t look conventionally attractive anymore. That was really, really hard.’
Even as her hair has begun growing back, she said the emotional adjustment is ongoing.
‘It’s something I’m still coming to terms with.’
The call no one wants to make
One of the most distressing moments came almost immediately after her diagnosis, when she had to tell loved ones the news.
‘I remember sitting in the specialist’s office with my partner and hearing her say it was cancer,’ she said.
‘Everything just went blurry and still.’
That night she began calling family and friends.
‘Hearing their panic and their emotions was really distressing. You’re dealing with your own fear, but you’re also navigating everyone else’s fear.’
Her family quickly rallied around her.
Krissy, originally from Queensland, had been living in Sydney for about a decade when she was diagnosed.
Her retired parents, who were travelling Australia in a caravan, immediately stopped their trip and parked nearby for eight months.
Her mother helped with cooking and caring for her after treatment sessions, while her father took over daily walks for her high-energy Border Collie.
‘There were days during chemo when I didn’t even have the energy to shower,’ she said.
Radiation and the long road after cancer
After chemotherapy, Krissy began six weeks of daily radiation therapy.
‘I went every morning at 7am and then went straight to work afterwards,’ she said.
‘Radiation itself was actually fine. I had no complications. It was more just annoying to have to go every day.’
Today, the cancer itself is gone – but survivorship comes with its own challenges.
Because her cancer was oestrogen-positive, Krissy must take hormone-blocking medication that effectively puts her body into medical menopause.
‘My cancer eats oestrogen for breakfast. So limiting oestrogen is really important for remission,’ she said.
The treatment causes symptoms including hot flashes, mood swings, and weight gain.
‘I feel like medical menopause is something that doesn’t get talked about much,’ she said.
‘Survivorship doesn’t get talked about much either.’
While there is relief at reaching remission, the aftermath can be complicated.
‘You focus so much on beating cancer that when you get there, there’s relief. But then you’re left with this shell of who you were.
‘I look different, I feel different, and my outlook on life has changed.’
Krissy believes the experience has reshaped her identity in unexpected ways.
‘I feel like I’m rediscovering who I am. I almost feel like I’m 20 again – asking myself who I am and who I want to be.’
She is slowly returning to normal life, travelling, socialising with friends, and rebuilding routines.
But some days remain difficult.
‘Some mornings I wake up and I can’t even look at myself in the mirror. I just hate it,’ she said.
Dating and meeting new people also feels different now.
‘I’m still working out how I date again and how I meet new people again.’
A moment that changed everything
Looking back, Krissy still finds it unsettling how suddenly everything changed.
‘I didn’t have any other symptoms. It felt like the lump was just there one day,’ she said.
That fleeting moment in the shower ultimately saved her life.
‘I wasn’t intentionally checking my body – I just happened to notice my nipple,’ she said.
‘And thank God I did, because it’s scary to think what could happen if you ignore something like that.’