However given that there's been a bit of cancer knocking about my family she said it was probably best to go and get it checked out. I thought it was probably nothing too, and said as such to my husband who agreed. "It's probably just muscle, " I said, "my body has gone into shock since I've started making it do pilates." "Yes, " he agreed, "but best to get it checked out."

I waited for an appointment at the breast clinic in Castlebar. It wasn't terribly long coming . . . less than two weeks. In the meantime, I poked about at the lump a bit, and remembered how my aunt who had had cancer told me that her breast just "hadn't felt right" before she was finally diagnosed, and another friend of my mother's who had had no lump at all, just a hot, stinging sensation near her armpit. I tried to remember how my breast had felt before the hard bit appeared but couldn't really. So I put it out of my head and told myself it was almost certainly 'probably nothing', just like the GP had said. If she had thought it was 'something' then she would have said nothing as opposed to "it's probably nothing", I reasoned.

On the morning of my appointment at the mammogram clinic my husband asked me if I wanted him to come. "No, " I said rather too quickly, then not wishing to discourage my Olivier added, "it's only Castlebar, no big deal. I've got a time so I'll be in an out in under and hour."

On the way up I started to feel nervous. I pulled in at Ballyvary and took a deep breath and wished I'd let my husband drive me. Somebody texted me to wish me luck. I thought I hadn't told anyone but I must have mentioned it to somebody, nonchalantly . . . it's probably nothing . . . Kylie hysteria and all. The whole thing was over and done with very quickly. Lots of squashing and pulling that one wouldn't volunteer for no good reason, about on the same level of discomfort as the dreaded smear. The machine operator was very nice and told me they'd forward the results on, but leaving the mammogram I knew I was clear. I can't remember why I felt that, if they actually told me there and then, but I remember calling my husband and saying that we were right . . . it was nothing. I cried with relief in the car park.

There are plans to close the breast cancer unit in Castlebar. This is a tragedy, not just for those women who will go undiagnosed but for those of us for who have the peace of mind of knowing "it's nothing". In this day and age all women, even rural women who don't make up the voting numbers, deserve speedy diagnosis and the peace of mind of knowing that it is at their disposal.

There is not a person in this county, and very possibly the country, who disagrees with that . . . so why is it happening?