Woman diagnosed with rare breast cancer after spotting unusual freckles on chest

40-year-old Rebecca Hockaday was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer in 2012 after noticing unusual freckles on her chest and breast.

At the time she didn't think much of it, telling the Daily Mail,"It was summer and it was where my bathing suit cut off. There was only one so I didn't think anything of it."

The mother-of-two went to a dermatologist six months later after the spots started increasing, the Daily Mail reported. The dermatologist recognised the spots and Hockaday was sent to a cancer institute where a biopsy confirmed she had a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer. What she thought were freckles were actually a symptom of stage 3 inflammatory breast cancer.

Inflammatory breast cancer, the National Cancer Institute explains is an aggressive disease in which cancer cells block lymph vessels in the skin of the breast.

Hockaday, from Georgia, was told her condition was progressed and it was also in her lymphatics and lymph nodes. She started an aggressive radiation treatment after her chemotherapy and a bilateral mastectomy.

While she revealed it was exhausting and painful, she told the Daily Mail it was worth it to be cancer-free 10 months after her diagnosis and still is.

Currently, Hockaday has to get monthly injections, scans and takes daily medication.