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Mum says lockdown with cancer was 'life and death'

Kevin Hay
BBC News, South West
BBC Samantha O'Sullivan to the left wearing glasses with shoulder length hair. There is a dark wooden cabinet in the background.BBC
Samantha O'Sullivan said she was battling cervical cancer when the first lockdown hit the UK in 2020

A mum of three who was dealing with cervical cancer when lockdown first happened said it was a "claustrophobic, numbing routine".

Samantha O'Sullivan was 35 years old when the first lockdown was announced on 23 March 2020.

Ms O'Sullivan said she was living in a flat in St Austell, Cornwall, with her three children, Leo, 14, Calvin, nine, and two-year-old Lowenna.

She said with her immune system compromised by chemotherapy and radiotherapy, self-isolation was a matter of "life and death".

"If you asked me to do it again I couldn't, I couldn't," said Ms O'Sullivan.

Samantha O'Sullivan Samantha O'Sullivan to the left of the screen wearing a colourful facemask. There are bushes and a tree in the background, on the right.Samantha O'Sullivan
The mum-of-three said the strain of her treatment combined with lockdown nearly broke her

She said: "Life in the flat became a claustrophobic, numbing routine.

"It was like rolling a tape, then at the end of the day you would just rewind it then play it again.

"Get up, sort the kids out, home school tea, bed."

She said the strain of her treatment combined with lockdown nearly broke her.

Samantha O'Sullivan sitting at a wooden table with her phone in her hand. She is watching the screen. There is a glass on the table, to her right, and a clock on the wall behind her. She is wearing a blue top with a white cardigan.
Samantha O'Sullivan said being in the flat during the lockdowns sent her on a "real low"

Ms O'Sullivan said: "Being in the flat sent me on a real low."

"It's as if the world died for a year... there was absolutely nothing."

She recorded her daily struggles in a series of video diaries for BBC South West and reflecting on them had brought up the scale of struggles she faced during the lockdowns.

Five years on, Ms O'Sullivan said she was now cancer free and still living in St Austell but in a new house with her two youngest children.

She added: "I went through hell, it was rough, I was sick all the time, it was not good but I am here today and I am well and the kids are glad to have their mum."

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