Interview 20

Age at interview: 63

Age at diagnosis: 58

Brief Outline:

Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996. Had a lumpectomy and was given chemotherapy, radiotherapy and Tamoxifen.

Explains that her fears about recurrence are unlikely to go away.

Well I think once you've got the treatment over you start living your life again. And you just go, I just seemed to go back to normal again. You do worry about it, of course you do.

And I'm forever examining myself, always, and I think too much sometimes. And you keep thinking' "Oh, that's a lump there."

And it's not, of course it's not a lump. But yeah, you do worry. I don't think you'll ever stop worrying about it, that it might come back.
 

Describes her feelings of restlessness because of chemotherapy.

You don't know what to do with your body. It's as if you're not there. I didn't know whether to go and lay on the bed, I used to go and lay on the bed. I lay on the bed and I had to get up. I'd go and sit down and I couldn't sit down. I'd walk around.

And you just don't know what to do for 2 or 3 days.

And I'm not the only one that has said that, I've heard it from somebody else that they felt the same. But after a couple of days that wears off and you're sort of back to normal again.
 

Describes her experience of having a lumpectomy.

Well you go into hospital and of course you have all the usual check-ups beforehand and then they take you up to the theatre. They give you something to relax you first, take you up to the theatre and operate.

The surgeon comes round first and tells you what's going to happen and what they're going to do, and why they're not giving you a mastectomy and why they're doing this.

Because that's, they give you conservation surgery now instead of, so you've still got something there. Even though it's a different shape but you can be built up if you want to. But I never was, didn't matter that much to me, I'm not that young anyway.

But then you go up to surgery and of course then you don't really know anything until you come out. And I come out of surgery and I was in a lot of pain.

Did you have a drain and things like that?

Yes, you had a drain.You walk around with a drain all the time until it clears. Yeah, a bag, yeah.

And stitches, did you have?

No. I didn't have stitches no, no just the drain. Well I, no that's a lie, that's a lie. Of course I had stitches because I had stitches where I had the surgery. And they took the lymph glands away and I had stitches under my arm.

But she was an absolutely marvellous surgeon because you can't hardly see anything.