'Nobody gets out of this alive': The 42-year-old who 'jumped through all the hoops' but will still die from horrific illness

A woman who 'jumped through all the hoops' hoping her life would be saved through treatment will still die from an horrific illness. The 42-year-old's breast cancer spread to her lungs, liver and bones and is incurable - she says she hopes that with more research and funding fewer lives are taken by the “exploitative” disease.

Emma Robertson, 42, a freelancer who lives on a narrowboat in London with her husband Mike, 42, a brewer and musician, started considering having a family towards the end of 2012. However in early 2013, she discovered she had an “achy” lump in her right breast and, after multiple scans and a biopsy, she was informed she had breast cancer.

Since chemotherapy can affect fertility, the couple started the IVF process and successfully froze three embryos, which they named Wynken, Blynken, and Nod after the children’s poem. However, after then undergoing chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and a single mastectomy, Emma was told the cancer had metastasised – spread – to her lungs, liver and bones and is incurable.

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Given she thought she may not survive the year, or even five years post-diagnosis, Emma said she had to “accept” that she could not have children. But her dreams of having a family were nevertheless crushed. “I so desperately wanted to have children but this was all over for me,” Emma told PA Real Life.

“How can you have kids when you’re living with an incurable illness that’s really unlikely to allow you to live for five years?”

Emma has since married her husband Mike, as she said “life doesn’t stop just because you’re diagnosed with a horrible,