JUST months after Ailsa Mackenzie lost her partner to kidney cancer, the unthinkable happened.

The 44-year-old from Darnley was told she had breast cancer.

“It was horrific, unbelievable,” she recalls. “I felt like it was happening to someone else. What I was most worried about was my son. Barnaby had just lost his dad and suddenly, I had cancer too.”

Ailsa’s partner Robert Jones, well known and respected as a director and actor with Scottish Opera and the Citizens Theatre, was diagnosed with advanced kidney cancer in April 2015 and died in January 2016.

“By the time he was diagnosed, it was already stage four, and incurable,” says Ailsa. “He’d had a pain in his side for a while, but when we got the diagnosis, it was a complete shock.”

The couple met at Scottish Opera, where Ailsa, who is now freelance, was working as marketing manager. She had moved up to Glasgow from County Durham and now lives in Darnley on the south side of the city, with nine-year-old Barnaby.

Discovering she had breast cancer was a bolt out of the blue.

“I’d been fine, I just noticed a little dimple on my breast – there was no lump, I had no other symptoms but after everything that had happened to Robert, I thought I should get it checked out,” she explains.

“I couldn’t believe it when they told me. The tumour was tiny, just seven millimetres wide, but I needed a lot of treatment.”

Ailsa was diagnosed in November 2016. After a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery in January this year, she was told the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and she needed chemotherapy, radiotherapy and further drug regimes.

“It was pretty harsh, to put it mildly,” she says. “It was rough on my body, especially after the surgery. And to go in to hospital every week for chemotherapy, and then every day for weeks for radiotherapy, and be a mum and try to work…it’s exhausting. Suddenly, you are in a whole new world you had no idea existed before, and it takes over your life."

Also battling grief following Robert’s death, Ailsa admits it has been a difficult year.

She adds: “Some days it’s fine, but others are harder. But I have Barnaby, and he’s the main thing. He’s the most important thing in all of this.”

It was because of Barnaby that Ailsa decided to have a pioneering scalp cooling treatment during her chemotherapy sessions.

“When I was given the diagnosis, I was told I would lose my hair,’” she says. “I have heard from other people how traumatic it is to lose your hair – so many people say it’s the worst thing about the treatment. I was worried how it would affect Barnaby.

“I suspected that even if I told him I was going to get better, if I looked ill and bald, he wouldn’t believe me, and my appearance would add to his fears.

“It was so important that I kept my hair, which is why I decided to give scalp cooling a try. I didn’t have anything to lose.”

Ailsa used the Paxman Scalp Cooling System before, during and after each of her chemotherapy sessions at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre and as a result, she kept most of her hair.

“I could see that my hair had thinned, but if you didn’t know, you wouldn’t notice any difference,” she says.

“It made such a difference to me – I had been scared about what Barnaby would feel if he’d seen me without hair, what a shock like that might have done to him after all he had been through. And of course, that would have been equally traumatic for me, to see him go through that.”

Ailsa’s treatment continues, but she says having kept her hair has made a huge difference to her.

“I sometimes wore a headband to disguise my thinned parting, but I didn’t wear a wig or scarves at all,” she says.

“The hair I lost is growing back and I’ve been able to go back to work with confidence in my appearance.”

The cap is made from lightweight silicone, so it moulds to your head shape and size. Liquid coolant passes through it, extracting heat from the scalp and reducing the amount of chemotherapy drugs reaching the hair follicles.

The machines at the Beatson are funded by Walk the Walk, the UK’s largest cancer grantmaking charity.

Ailsa adds: “It doesn’t work for everyone, but it worked for me. It can be a bit uncomfortable but you get used to it. I just wrapped up, stuck The Archers on my headphones and tried to relax for an hour and a half.”

Ailsa says she has been grateful for the support of family and friends, plus local charities Maggie’s and the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice. Now she is looking to the future and, she says, “taking one day at a time.”

“We got great support from the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice after Robert died, and Barnaby really benefitted from their Butterfly Project for young people,” she says.

“He also took up tae kwon do, which he had just started before his dad died. He loves it – it’s a small club and they have been very supportive.”

Ailsa adds: “I have to be realistic. Yes, the treatments are not very nice, but they are very effective and that’s what I am focussing on.”