A man who is three years in remission after a shock breast cancer diagnosis is urging people to get behind the new ‘Face up to Cancer’ campaign.

Dara McDonough was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021 after finding a lump on his chest in the shower after a run one morning.

On The Pat Kenny Show, he said he could not believe what he was hearing when he was first diagnosed - but things “moved very quickly” after his initial tests and he is now in remission.

“He may as well have told me I was pregnant,” he said.

“I was thinking, ‘You should go back to Trinity or the Royal College of Surgeons or wherever you got your degree because I'm a man, like, I can't have breast cancer.’

Breast cancer

Despite his shock, Dara soon found out that around 30 men in Ireland get breast cancer every year.

He told Pat how he originally discovered the lump.

“I came in from a run and I was in the process of having a shower and I put my hand across my chest and I found a substantial lump which I know now was a tumour,” he said. “It was between 2cm and 3cm.”

“There was no pain - absolutely no pain - and I didn't know what it was; I dried myself off and because there was no pain, I forgot all about it.

“The next morning in the shower, I felt it again and then every morning after that, I went looking for it – but I didn't have to look hard because as I said, it was about 2cm.

“I left it for about five or six days, thank God, and then I went to my GP.”

Biopsy

He said his GP organised a scan and within two weeks he was in Dublin getting a biopsy.

Two weeks after that, he was called in for the results.

“I went back into his clinic and there was a lady standing beside me who I know now was a breast care nurse,” he said. “She put her hand on my shoulder and I was thinking, ‘This is not good’.

“[The professor] looked at me and he said, Dara, it's not good, it's breast cancer.”

“I asked him what was going to happen next and he said to me, ‘It's going to have to come off Dara’.

“I said, ‘What's going to have to come off?

“He said, ‘I have to take your breast and your nipple - full mastectomy; it has to come off.’”

The operation went well and Dara is now three years in remission.

Face up to Cancer

Dara was speaking to Pat to highlight the new ‘Face up to Cancer’ campaign from three of Ireland’s leading cancer charities.

The campaign aims to raise funds for cancer research and support across Ireland while also humanising what can be a hugely isolating experience for patients.

The campaign is asking thousands of people to upload a selfie and make a donation.

The selfies will then be compiled into one of eight unique mosaics showing the faces of some of those who have been impacted by cancer and some of the experts working tirelessly to change the future of cancer care and treatments.