For three years, Gwen Luscombe dreaded the same two or three nights every month.
She’d wake in the early hours drenched. Her hair would be damp against her neck, her pyjamas soaked through and the sheets clammy beneath her. Sometimes, she would strip the bed. Other nights, she would quietly move to the spare room, where she had already laid a towel across the mattress, hoping not to wake her wife.
‘It got to the point where I knew it was always the day before my period,’ she tells the Daily Mail. ‘I’d think, “Tomorrow night’s going to be bad.”‘
At first, it seemed like one more unwelcome part of getting older. As a woman in her mid-40s, Gwen assumed night sweats were simply the beginning of perimenopause.
Her doctor agreed.
After trying to manage the symptoms with the contraceptive pill without much success, they decided the next step was a Mirena IUD, a hormone-releasing contraceptive device inserted into the uterus, to regulate her cycle.
Before she left the appointment, though, her doctor asked one more question.
Had she ever had a mammogram? That one seemingly offhand question saved Gwen’s life.
For three years, Gwen Luscombe (pictured) suffered severe night sweats in the days before her period. At first she put the symptoms down to perimenopause
Nothing pointed to cancer
For Gwen, life on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula revolved around family and the flexibility that came with working for herself.
After moving to Australia from upstate New York in 2001, she eventually settled on the coast with her wife and their young son, building a career as a freelance food and travel writer.
Apart from the occasional skin check, Gwen had never had a significant health scare. So when the night sweats started in her mid-40s, she assumed they were another sign that she was getting older.
Every month, just before her period, Gwen knew what was coming. Friends suggested bamboo pyjamas. She bought them; they didn’t help.
‘It wasn’t just hot,’ she says. ‘I was literally waking up with damp hair. All under my neck was wet.’
To avoid stripping the bed in the middle of the night, she started sleeping in the spare room on the worst nights, lying a towel across the mattress so she could simply throw it in the wash the next morning.
Her GP prescribed the contraceptive pill, which helped for a while before the symptoms returned. An endocrinologist agreed it was probably hormonal. A naturopath specialising in women’s health suggested everything from gut health to supplements, but month after month, the night sweats came back.
After Gwen (pictured) went for a mammogram, the truth began to unravel
By then, Gwen had spent hundreds of dollars and countless hours trying to fix something everyone believed was simply part of getting older.
‘I just kept thinking, “This isn’t right,”‘ she says. ‘I felt like there had to be an answer.’
After three years of searching, Gwen finally thought she had one.
Her doctor was confident that the relentless night sweats were linked to perimenopause. After trying the contraceptive pill, they agreed the next step was a Mirena IUD.
Before the appointment ended, though, her GP raised one final point.
‘She said, “You’ve never had a mammogram, have you?”‘
‘She told me it was probably nothing and there was no rush, but because there’s a type of breast cancer that’s fed by oestrogen, she thought it would be worth having one before putting in the Mirena. She said it would also give us a baseline for future scans.’
Driving home, Gwen expected to feel relieved that there was finally a plan. Instead, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.
‘I came home and said to my wife, “I don’t know what it is, I just don’t feel like I should do it,”‘ she says. ‘I thought maybe I was just nervous because I’d never had an IUD before, but it just didn’t sit right with me.’
Before going ahead with the Mirena, she decided that she would book the mammogram her doctor had mentioned.
‘I said, “I’ll just go and have the mammogram. I’m sure it’s fine.”‘
‘It’s probably nothing’
The mammogram led to another appointment, then another.
After the first scan, Gwen was told there was a small area that the radiologist wanted to look at more closely. It was probably nothing, they reassured her. Without an earlier mammogram to compare it to, dense breast tissue and harmless changes could easily look suspicious.
She went back for more imaging, then a biopsy. Again, the message was the same: it was most likely benign.
By the time the results appointment arrived, Gwen never considered taking anyone with her.
‘My wife asked if I wanted her to come,’ she says. ‘I told her not to be silly. She would have had to cancel clients and I honestly thought it was going to be fine.’
Gwen walked into the clinic alone, expecting to be told everything was clear.
Instead, before she was called through, a nurse looked at her and asked: ‘Do you have anyone with you?’
The words she never expected to hear
Sitting in the consultation room alone, Gwen realised the nurse’s question hadn’t been routine.
‘I was just so blindsided,’ she says. ‘I’d been reassured the whole way through that it was probably nothing. I just kept thinking, “It’s fine.”‘
The biopsy had found a hormone receptor-positive tumour, about the size of a pencil eraser, hidden deep at the back of her breast.
Because of its position, it couldn’t be felt during a breast examination, which explained why neither Gwen nor her GP had found any warning signs.
Because it had been caught so early, surgeons were able to remove the tumour and two nearby lymph nodes in early July 2024. The cancer had not spread, meaning that Gwen avoided chemotherapy and a mastectomy.
Five weeks of radiation followed. Working from home meant Gwen could fit treatment around her job, putting in a few hours at her laptop each morning before the fatigue hit. She would sleep for an hour or two in the afternoon, then finish the remainder of her day.
‘It was the best outcome from a really awful situation,’ she says. ‘I’m just so grateful we found it when we did.’
Getting on with life
These days, life for Gwen revolves around work, family and a busy four-year-old again.
She takes tamoxifen, a hormone therapy used to help prevent breast cancer returning, each day. The night sweats that first sent her searching for answers have disappeared too.
Looking back, one of the people who made the biggest difference wasn’t a doctor, but her McGrath Breast Care Nurse, who helped her navigate the appointments, medical jargon and uncertainty that followed her diagnosis.
‘She was worth her weight in gold,’ Gwen says. ‘If I had questions or I was freaking out, I could just call her.’
Two years on, Gwen still thinks about how easily things could have been different.
‘I think women wait until they feel like they have a reason,’ she says.
‘I didn’t have a reason. I didn’t have a lump. I didn’t have a family history. If I’d waited until I did, I don’t know where I’d be now.’
