Interview 28

Age at interview: 40

Age at diagnosis: 38

Brief Outline:

Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. Had a lumpectomy and was given chemotherapy, radiotherapy and Tamoxifen.

Suggests words of support to friends and family when talking to someone who has been diagnosed with cancer.

So my advice to people is, when someone very close to you is diagnosed with cancer, never say you understand because you don't understand unless you have cancer yourself.

Instead just tell them, assure them that they are not alone, you will be there for them, you'll go through it together.

That's the only words. They sound simple and empty but they mean a lot.
 

Explains how her daughter supported her through her illness.

I talked to her and she received it very well and said' "You will be okay." So she gave me more courage to fight. Yes she was.

She became so mature, where you wake up early in the morning before going to school when I've been in bed sleeping, thinking she's preparing to go to school. She'll go and take a bath and come and make breakfast for me and bring me breakfast in bed. And sometimes when I have to do laundry she will be there doing everything with me.

And there was a day that I slept and when I woke up she had prepared mash potatoes and different vegetables and sauce. I was surprised you know because those are the things she doesn't do. Cleaning the house before I wake up because she's an early person, so I was really surprised.
 

Explains that disappointment with her treatment has inspired her to start up a support group.

Of course I feel this whole cancer thing, the NHS here has disappointed me. They let me down and they've not just lowered me to the level of a beggar they've kind of destroyed my life. I have to go and start from scratch again.I'm going to start a support group of cancer, helping people.

Help them fight their battles if there's things like this happening. To help them realise that there's a life after cancer. And that you can talk openly about cancer. How to deal with their pain. To help the families cope. And to help them maybe with visits to the hospital.

But if you tell them that' "I was there. I was diagnosed with cancer, went through this," they will listen more and they will trust you. Better than even the doctors because that's what I've realised. You trust your fellow sufferer more than the doctors.
 

Explains how she searched for more information through contacts in the medical field and on the internet.

Well it's difficult to say now because I wanted to find out more about breast cancer, the treatment.

And so I just, when I needed any information I went, not to the libraries, I went to the internet if I'm not getting more information.

And I have been communicating with doctors in [country], America and Canada.

Whenever I go to the hospital and get these comments, send them a message and say "listen I went for this and it was said like this and this."

So I'm going to get more tested to see whether I'm really, I've really recovered.
 

One woman who had a lumpectomy as a day patient criticises the treatment she received in hospital.

I went for the operation, which was supposed to be under local anaesthetic. I went with my friend and my daughter on the eleventh. They went to the museum while I'm going in.

But just as they were pushing me into the theatre I was told that it's going to be on general anaesthetic.

I refused and then was told then I would be again on the waiting list, and knowing the waiting lists in this country I thought' "Okay, I trust you with my life." I went in and they pushed me out at four o'clock, at four-thirty I was discharged.

And I was just given pain killers, no instructions what to do if complications come. I went straight to bed. Ten o'clock at night I woke up with a terrible pain and my breast swollen twice its original size.

She called the hospital they said yeah we have to go to Accident and Emergency. We went there, we arrived there at 12 o'clock, we sit there until five o'clock in the morning and when the doctor came to see me she just, she didn't even look at my breast.

She listened to what I was telling her and she prescribed the same painkillers because I took the painkillers and the letter. She didn't even open the letter which I was given for my GP which I thought in that case she was supposed to open.