Saturday 1 October 2022 10:12 PM DR LIZ O'RIORDAN: Magnum ice creams, chip butties and Twitter fans are helping ... trends now

In March, my mum Isobel noticed a small swelling on the back of her upper right arm. It wasn't sore, perhaps a bit tender. I took a look and decided she'd probably pulled a muscle while gardening

About a month later, she noticed a lump on the front of her arm – a palm-sized swelling on her bicep. Again, we assumed it was a sprain. Her GP referred her to a shoulder clinic.

On June 8, while Mum was waiting to be seen, she broke her arm. She was opening the door of a cafe when she heard and felt an almighty crack.

A week later, after X-rays and scans, she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a cancer of the bone.

As a former breast cancer surgeon who has had the disease twice, perhaps I should have seen it coming. But the truth is, like most people, I didn't. No one did.

I was heartbroken she would have to go through what I'd been through. And what she faces is far more serious: While 150 people are diagnosed with breast cancer every day in the UK, only 158 are diagnosed with osteosarcoma a year. That's how rare it is.

Four weeks after we learned the news, on July 13, Mum had her right arm amputated. The cancer had spread through most of the bone in her upper arm and getting rid of it offered her the lowest risk of it coming back.

It was, however, too late. After the surgery, we were told it had already spread to her lungs. It's now incurable.

She and my father live in the same village as I do, near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, and I've been a general dogsbody, ferrying everyone around to appointments and helping out.

Last month she began chemotherapy at Addenbrooke's in Cambridge. This could buy her more time if she responds well. We won't know until we try.

What's surprised me the most about this ordeal is how hard it's all been. Being a cancer surgeon – I'm retired, as my treatment made it physically impossible to continue – had done little to prepare me.

And as a patient, I just had to go through the motions. You turn up for scheduled treatment and appointments. You endure the side-effects because you have to.

But watching someone you love in pain or distress is far worse. You just want to take it away. I feel such guilt that I can't.

I feel helpless when I hear her cry out in pain. And I feel guilty when I help too much – treating her like an invalid because she has cancer, instead of letting her ask me for help when she needs it.

I'd assumed I'd never have to deal with the pain of losing Mum because, despite being given the all clear a few years back, I expected I'd die first. I'm also getting an insight into what my death might be like if my cancer comes back.

After my diagnosis, I decided to put my anger, confusion and frustration into words: I began to blog about my experiences and found a new community of women with breast cancer who share stories and advice with honesty and warmth.

Today, I am devoted to raising awareness and encouraging discussions about these most difficult subjects. Talking helps. We can't let fears stop us confronting the deeply personal, often uncomfortable truths about cancer. It's something one in every two of us will develop.

Roughly 460 people die in the UK every day from cancer. Millions more live with it. Even if you 'survive', treatment can change your body and your life for ever.

That's why it's important to know not just how to live well with the disease, but also how to best support someone you love to do the same. I'm proud of how far I've come since those terrifying first few months of my own cancer journey. But I was back to square one with Mum.

Here are some of the many things I wish I'd known at the start of all this…

HUMOUR HELPS… BUT SOME THINGS AREN'T FUNNY

Black humour is incredibly common among people living with cancer. Mum had been on Twitter since 2019, proudly declaring herself 'Liz O'Riordan's mum' on the social media site, to champion my campaigning. But since she started posting about her own diagnosis, she's gained a huge, supportive new fan club.

The day before her amputation, she told her nearly 4,000 followers she was about to be a 'one-armed bandit', has described herself as the 'swashbuckling chemo granny' and stayed cheery and positive.

She now wears a 'one-armed bandit' T-shirt I found online. We've laughed so much since then and it's been a huge release of tension.

But every once in a while I'll overstep the mark.

Mum tells how I had once joked that I would have her engagement ring once she'd gone. She just went quiet. It was quite a shock and she wasn't ready to confront that. We talked about it later and I apologised. I have to remember I've had a head start and that my prognosis was

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