New husband dumped me after I got cancer

She was 42 when she made the discovery while slipping on a new negligee in their room in Grenada.

Within weeks, her breast was removed after she was diagnosed with cancer.

And less than six months later, her new husband left her. He told her no man could fancy her any more.

Twelve years on, Gloria says she now forgives him for the way he treated her.

But at the time his barbed comments cut so deeply into her confidence she lost her love of life completely.

She said: "He was incredibly spiteful about my cancer. Then when he left me I would sit on the edge of my bed crying and asking myself why he had gone.

"I totally believed it was because of the cancer. I thought it was me. I thought I was grotesque."

Before the mastectomy Gloria, of Emerald Quay, Shoreham, was proud of her curvy figure.

She was often complimented on her sculpted cleavage and slim waist.

For years after surgery, Gloria felt like she would never be seen as sexy again.

What she really wanted was to have her old body back, so she put herself through a punishing succession of reconstruction operations.

Each time, her body rejected the implant and she was left feeling worse.

She said: "When I first came home from that reconstruction operation, I felt amazing. I put this lovely yellow swimsuit on and said to myself: 'Gloria, you're back'.

"Within three days though, it was leaking. I went to the doctor and he sent me straight back to the hospital where I had had it done.

"I went from feeling not quite right to incredibly sick very quickly. Within hours I was so swollen I had no waist anymore and my boob was right under my chin. I was scared I could die."

Gloria tried for a reconstruction eight times.

She decided to stop putting her body through the trauma after a final failed attempt in 1993, but when she moved to Brighton in the mid-Nineties she was persuaded to try again.

She said: "My GP suggested I tried again because there was a new technique that involved taking a muscle from the stomach and putting it in the breast.

"It was a complete disaster. I was in hospital for over a month and had infections all over my body.

"I was cross that I had allowed myself to go through it again. Brighton had been a new start for me, a chance to start living again, and I felt I had spoilt that."

But it took the horror of that final failed reconstruction for Gloria to fully feel herself again in a body that had come to seem alien.

It was only when she finally decided to stop thinking about the bit she was missing that she was able to feel whole again.

She said: "Every time I had a reconstruction it was like having a mastectomy all over again. I would have this wonderful new boob for a few days and I would feel great again, then it would have to come out and suddenly I felt ugly and unbalanced, just like I did at the start.

"I knew I had to work towards feeling comfortable with how I looked and make the most of it. I had to get to the point where I felt confident about who I was again."

For the first five years after being diagnosed with cancer in 1989, Gloria kept her fears and disgust to herself.

She was madly in love on her honeymoon and didn't want anything spoil it.

She said: "I wasn't overly concerned at first because there was no cancer anywhere in my family.

"But I didn't like the way it felt so on the day we got home I called my GP and she said she would like me to see a surgeon.

"When I saw the surgeon, he said he was sure it would disappear by itself. I said I wanted it to be removed anyway, but he suggested leaving it a few weeks to see if it went away on its own.

"It didn't go away. In fact I found another lump underneath it the week before the operation.

"Afterwards, the surgeon was standing at the end of my trolley saying he was afraid they had found something he wasn't happy with. I had a mastectomy two days later.

"I felt very alone, right from the start. My daughter was a teenager at the time and I didn't want to burden her. Then I ended up divorcing my husband a year later after he left me for another woman.

"I know now that it was him, not me. He has a habit of leaving his wives for other women, marrying them and then meeting someone else.

"But at the time I felt it was me. I was too embarrassed and ashamed to talk to my friends about it. Many of them didn't know anything about it. I couldn't even bear to look at myself. I didn't feel like me any more."

It took two things to make Gloria, now 54, finally feel herself again.

One was the decision to give up on reconstruction. The other was the charity Breast Cancer Care.

She said: "A little while after the mastectomy I was looking for some underwear that would be flattering and pretty. It was so hard to find anything.

"I got chatting to the woman in the shop about it and she said I should get in touch with a breast cancer nurse.

"I got in touch with a nurse and we became really good friends. Through her I found out about Breast Cancer Care.

"It started when the nurse asked me to speak to a woman who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. She was terrified she would look abnormal after a mastectomy. She was a stunning woman, beautiful. When I told her I had had a mastectomy, she could hardly believe it.

"She said: 'If you can look like that, so can I'. We kept up a friendship but, sadly, she died. That was another thing that made me realise I was actually very lucky."

Gradually Gloria began to draw strength from her ordeal. She no longer felt like a victim, but a survivor.

She became a volunteer with Breast Cancer Care and is an active fund-raiser for the charity. She also helps other women deal with how they feel about their bodies after a mastectomy.

She said: "I tell them that since I had breast cancer I have tried to do something I have never done before every year.

"I've been parasailing, I helped deliver my granddaughter, I went swimming with stingrays. I would really love to do a wing walk on an aeroplane one day."

Gloria's challenge for this year is to trek 90km in seven days along the Great Wall of China.

Each one of the 50 women taking part has to raise at least £2,500 in sponsorship to go on the trek. The money will go to Breast Cancer Care.

Gloria has already managed to raise most of the money she needs through friends in Shoreham and colleagues where she works in passenger services at Gatwick.

She said: "When I think of women sitting in a corner brooding and thinking 'I can't be me again', it pains me.

"I used to feel like I was grotesque, but now I know that's not true. On New Year's Eve I wore a pair of hipster trousers and a crop-top, and I have never had as many compliments.

"I want to make sure other women know they can get their life back after breast cancer."

To sponsor Gloria on her trek, send a cheque made out to Breast Cancer Care to Gloria Barnes, c/o The Events Team, Breast Cancer Care, Kiln House, 210 New King's Road, London, SW6 4NZ, or telephone Ellie Sleeman on 020 7384 2984.

The Breast Cancer Care helpline is 0808 800 6000.