Interview 33

Age at interview: 56

Age at diagnosis: 54

Brief Outline: Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. Underwent a lumpectomy and was given Intra-operative radiotherapy and Tamoxifen.

Discusses possible links between diet and cancer, and some of the dietary changes she made.

And I believe a recent survey that I read in one of the Sunday papers said that - it was a huge survey, 50,000 people in France - they have decided that one in three cancers are food related. We are what we eat, so that is part of my regime.

I have read about how foods are preserved and I don't like the sound of it at all. I don't like the fact that most of the meat that we're eating are fed drugs and hormones to make them healthy and fat.

And perfect robust looking fruit and vegetables have usually been artificially grown and they leave substances and things on the skin that can do all sorts of damage. Even eggs that we eat.

The poultry are fed stuff that dyes the yolk a bright yellow because that's what they think we want.

Organic dairy stuff but I don't overdo the dairy, but I take supplements.

And the real key, that I never did much of, was drink tons of water.

Water flushes toxics out of the system.
 

Explains that knowledge about breast cancer can reduce the fear.

Well it is an emotionally draining and terrifying experience. But the emotion and the terror receded as I became more knowledgeable.

So you combat that with empowering yourself with knowledge, getting to know and confronting what is happening to you. And that power takes away the fear and takes away the stress because when you're actively participating in your cure that solves that problem.

But it isn't easy and there are times when you, you do crumble. But it is transient.

The only important thing about hardship, my grandmother told me, is that it always passes on.
 

Explains that, despite her doubts about future relationships, she has met a new partner.

And I felt and believed that the romance in my life was completely over, that I was never going to be desired or feel desirable or have any sense of desire myself. That I was going to have something awful done to my breast. I would not be a woman in that sense any more.

But I was fortunate it was small it was a lumpectomy and in reality I have an almost indistinguishable scar in a very good position. It's about on the bra line, on the side, underneath my arm.

And my right breast is very slightly smaller than my left breast, but with a good bra you just never notice it.

You feel a sense of invasion and you go through a very bad patch of self doubt. But you come out the other side.

And I have a very happy ever after story because as a result of my diagnosis I met the most wonderful man in the world who could cope with it because his wife died six years ago of lung cancer. And I've found a new partner for life and that's absolutely wonderful. So there was life after breast cancer.
 

Describes how her family supported her and helped her to seek out more information about breast cancer.

There were some friends who scuttled away and I never heard anything from them because they couldn't cope with it. It was frightening, it was embarrassing.

But my son and my immediate family were absolutely wonderful. My daughter-in-law bought for me two of the brilliant books that I read and found such a help. And my son immediately gave me crash courses on how to use the internet. I didn't have a computer and you might say that the cancer experience has switched me on technologically-speaking.

He took me to a video [internet] caf' and we went into the videos, and I wanted to look up intra-operative radiotherapy because it had been mentioned to me and there were reams of stuff on it. There's loads of stuff on tamoxifen, whatever you want to know you can find out.
 

Describes how she learned about an investigation which could affect the treatment she was given.

It's an organisation called Can Help and they have a website.

He did a report for me that told me about something called sentinel node biopsy, which was a way of avoiding the very serious lymph gland operation. They simply inject a radioactive dye into the tumour and then they track it with a radio isotope. And this is quite painless. It's just watching something on a screen. And there's a dye injected which wasn't nearly as painful as the fine needle biopsy. And if the radioactive dye drains out, it will go to the first lymph gland, that's called the sentinel node.

And then the next day when I had my surgery they - with a little Geiger counter - they go straight to this lymph gland and they do a cytology, then and there, in the operating theatre. And if it's negative there's no way it can have spread to the rest of your glands, and that avoids major surgery.

I persuaded him, because it was part of a trial, that I didn't want to have the lymph glands removed after and he agreed because he considered I was sufficiently well informed.

And I think it's so important not to be bamboozled by doctors into the first set of solutions, they panic you into having major surgery that perhaps isn't right for you.
 

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

Yes, at the integrated medical centre they have, you can have infusions -that's like a bag of, a cocktail of things, there was a lot of vitamin C in that and all the other nutrients - and it's specially put together depending on your personal need. You see the doctor. They are GPs but who have then gone on to specialise in integrated nutritional support.

And there are a lot of men of science who challenge this but more and more they're having to eat their words, if you'll excuse the pun.

And I had two or three of these. They take a long, they just put a needle in your arm and it drips in over a couple of hours and you sit there with two or three others who are going through the same procedure. And you drink lots of water. And my God you feel bouncy afterwards.

And for the next couple of weeks, it gives you the strength to - I believed it did, I certainly felt that. It may be psychosomatic but I felt that I, I was doing something. And I was believing in what I was doing, and I know that's half the battle.

But nutrients and infusions of nutrients are not going to harm you and they may just be all the difference between, you know, making you ready for surgery, fighting against infection.

That's how it was.
 

Describes her experience of intra-operative radiotherapy.

So when I went to see Professor [name], by this time armed with a briefcase full of research, he told me about another new procedure called intra operative radiotherapy.

Instead of having six weeks post radiotherapy, which is traumatic, which is uncomfortable, which can be scarring, he explained to me that they had developed a tool that whilst you were in surgery, after they had removed the lump and made a wide excision so that if there's a little spread around where the tumour is they do what they call a wide excision, then they put a golf ball type thing into the wound, everybody evacuates the theatre and a sort of lead screen goes up.

And I was out of it because I was under anaesthetic.

So I had my sentinel node biopsy, then I had intra operative radiotherapy. And that in my opinion, as far as I was concerned, negated the need for post operative radiotherapy.

Although they are doing now larger doses under the operating, they didn't give me the full blast and therefore they wanted me to have continuing radiotherapy but for less weeks.

And that was then a personal decision I had to come to terms with.