Interview 08

Age at interview: 73

Age at diagnosis: 73

Brief Outline: Diagnosed with breast cancer 2001, planned treatment' Lumpectomy, Tamoxifen, Radiotherapy.

Describes her disbelief, her sense of loss and her gradual acceptance of her diagnosis.

Well here I am at nearly 74. Much wiser after the event as usual.

If you'd have asked me a fortnight ago to try and explain just how I felt I wouldn't have been able to do it. I'm very angry at myself because I feel I should have known better.

I think if I reflect now back on that fortnight it's, I suppose, a similar thing to a bereavement, where you're going through all the normal things and yet you, as if you're a whole differently.

I have been really cross at myself and then I think I got from that stage to disbelief where I felt if I'd just kept on pushing myself, just do the ordinary every day things, it would probably go away anyway.

I was even stupid enough to put my hand and think maybe it's gone. Well you know very well it hasn't, but you do it.

I'm relieved now that I've got to the stage where I know exactly what is happening. I know that this is only the first stage. I'm quite confident in my mind that although there are so many people with it, you're not on your own.

But I'm quite confident that everything that can be done will be done for me, and that is really reassuring.