A SELF confessed workaholic has urged others to get checked for breast cancer after she was the third woman in her firm to be diagnosed in three months.

Thankfully all three women have now been given the all-clear following the “extraordinary” scenario which began last year.

Survivor Christine Joyce, managing director and owner of CJAM Group, which has 15 women working there, said: “My message is even if you are someone who is busy and rushing to have your next meeting you have got to make time to get yourself checked.

“I was lucky.”

Christine, 57, and who recently celebrated her 40th wedding anniversary to husband Stephen, missed two mammogram appointments because of her busy career leading her marketing firm in White Colne.

But it was when two other staff members were diagnosed with breast cancer last year that she finally got round to getting checked privately.

She said: “One member of staff was diagnosed in April last year and then another member of staff in the early summer.

“That prompted me because when I was contacted for my first mammogram at 50 I was doing a conference in Europe so I couldn’t attend.

“I had meetings lined up and just couldn’t get there for when the unit was there. Then in January 2016 I received a letter for go for a mammogram and unfortunately it was the day I had a meeting in Birmingham. Again it was one of those weeks where we were so busy, it clashed with events, I felt fit and well and there was no cause for concern.”

Christine added: “Following the diagnosis of the two staff members they prompted me to go and get checked.”

The grandmother-of-two eventually booked a mammogram in Chelmsford expecting everything to be fine.

But within 24 hours she was contacted to be told something had been found and to go for more checks.

A 10cm lump was detected and had gone into a lymph node meaning although it was in its early stages, the cancer was aggressive.

“Had I left it and not gone I would be telling you a different story,” said Christine, who lives in Panfield.

“It was the most extraordinary thing – there were three of us in the same office in three months.”

Within a week Christine had a lumpectomy operation to remove the tumour and in July the first of six rounds of chemotherapy started, costing Christine her hair.

Five weeks of daily radiotherapy followed.

Even during her chemo, Christine took just four days off work taking a “business as usual approach” with her firm even scooping best community gong at the Gazette’s North Essex Business Awards.

In addition Christine was recognised for her contribution to reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured on Britain’s roads by tyre safety charity, TyreSafe, after working with it since its inception ten years ago.

When Christine had her radiotherapy first thing in the morning she went straight to work afterwards.

She said: “The team really pulled together.

“As a thank you we are going on a working weekend to Lisbon in Portugal in April, and everyone can bring their partners.

“Everyone has worked really hard to continue to win new clients and we have grown stronger.”

Last summer Christine and colleagues even took her fighting spirit to the Race of Life in Colchester’s Castle Park and plan to return with a larger team, clad in pink, this year.

The annual event raises cash for Cancer Research UK and their team previously raised £1,600.

Christine's two colleagues, who preferred not share their stories, had the all clear first and on Friday Christine had the good news she had hoped for herself.

She said the experience had taught her about herself.

“I am a workaholic but it has made me stand back and spend more down time.

“It has made me more determined to raise the bar as far as business is concerned. We have to look to the future and not look back.”