Interview 16

Age at interview: 50

Age at diagnosis: 48

Brief Outline: Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. Underwent a mastectomy and was given Tamoxifen and Zoladex.

Explains that the lump she found was different to any others she had had and turned out to be...

Well I suppose it was when I discovered the lump.

But previously I had discovered something - I'd felt like a thickening in the breast, about four months, maybe, beforehand, which I wasn't sure about. And I thought' "Well, I'll check this again next month."

And it was sort of a shock because it was so much bigger than it had been when I found, you know, what I thought I'd found a few months earlier - three months to four months earlier.

And, I've had small lumps in my breasts before, I've had fibro adenomas, and they were completely different. I knew this one was a, probably a cancer.

And I think you find it a shock but you're not sure you believe it.

They did all the tests - the mammogram, and the ultrasound, and the fine needle aspiration, and an ordinary other biopsy, a Tru-cut biopsy.

The biopsy came back that it was a cancer.
 

Explains that she did not join a support group because she did not want to dwell on her illness.

I never really felt I needed to go to a support group. I think there is one locally.

But I could get to all the information I needed - I can search the web and I've got access to medical libraries - so I didn't really feel there was any need to get information.

And I was getting enough support at work and at home. I didn't really need to join a group.

But in some ways I don't know that I'd have found it helpful. Because I didn't particularly want to dwell on having cancer. I wanted, it was part of my life, but I wanted to go on living the way I had before.

So I didn't want it to become that important a part of my life. So it was trying to keep it in, just as another part of my life but not making it a specially big part of my life.
 

Explains why she chose not to have a reconstruction.

And I haven't really considered reconstruction because I think it must be quite difficult to get you looking exactly the same as you were. And you can't get exactly the same as you were.

And I'd never feel it was me really, so that I'm quite happy just having the prosthesis.

And I don't particularly want, you know if they took some of these flaps from one place to another, I wouldn't really want the scaring that that causes.

So I'm quite happy with just a prosthesis.
 

Discusses why she was given tamoxifen and Zoladex.

So I wasn't keen to have surgery immediately but she said' "I think we'll try and shrink it first."

And because it was very, had a very high score for the oestrogen receptors, they put me on tamoxifen. And when I went to see the oncologist the next week, they put me on Zoladex.

So they said' "We'll put you on that, we'll see how that goes, and if that, we'll keep an eye on it and if that shrinks it that's fine. "We'll wait until it gets small enough. "If it doesn't, if it's not seeming to work, then we'll change to chemotherapy."

But even so two years on I still find that I get much more tired. I'm not sure if it's the Zoladex and the tamoxifen which have some of that effect.
 

Describes how she prepared herself physically for the surgery and how it helped to feel she was...

So besides that, then I had a mastectomy. So that would be a year last January. And that was alright.

During the time that I was waiting I was, I decided I'd need, I got myself as fit as possible. So I started all eating well and trying to keep fit, and trying to be as well as possible when I had my operation and whatever treatment was going to come. So I thought if I can get as fit as possible, then I'd maybe find it easier. And in fact I think that was helpful.

Well I already had been going to the gym but I made sure that I went to the gym regularly. I tried to go three times a week. And then I changed my, I tried to increase the amount of fruit and vegetables, cut down maybe on the fats. I started taking like multi-vitamins and minerals.

And I was already taking Evening Primrose Oil because I used to get sort of pre-menstrual things beforehand, so I was already taking that.

And just generally trying to look after myself.