Interview 43

Age at interview: 68

Age at diagnosis: 59

Brief Outline:

A malignant lump was found and she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1982, underwent a mastectomy and was given Tamoxifen. In 1996 another malignant lump was found and she under went a further mastectomy. The Tamoxifen was continued.

Explains that she found it difficult to look at her body after breast surgery but that this feeling passed with time.

And the surgeon said' "Now I want you to look." I says' "I cannot look at myself, I can't look at myself," because it was all stitched. I says' "No."

And then I'm saying to myself and I kept feeling this one and then here, and I said "Oh my God." 

And every time, I must've said, I was turning my back on my husband you know. I would take a bath, I still couldn't look at this. I just used to get the sponge and do this to try and keep it clean and done all here and all here. And I still couldn't and it was about a month.

Even when I got the stitches out ten days after the op, I still couldn't look at myself and it was about a month after that when I started to look at my body. And I says, and I was looking in the mirror and I kept saying' "That's the most queerest thing I've ever seen in my life, it's so ugly." It really was, a woman with one breast. "Oh," I says. "No."

But then as time went on and I got fitted with this prosthesis I said, and I was looking in the mirror, I said' "Oh nobody will ever know."

And I said' "Oh, this is marvellous." But no I'm quite happy now.

That I've got the two breasts off, I'm not embarrassed any more with my husband, I don't turn my back on him. In fact he'll say to me' "They're lovely scars you've got," you know. So it doesn't bother me any more.
 

Explains that her family's reaction was upsetting and she felt reluctant to speak to them at that point.

When I was first diagnosed it was through my, my family actually upset me more than anything because as I said we'd buried my sister two years previous and me taken thus, they couldn't accept it because it upset them and every one of them was on the phone.

They were coming on crying which upset me.

But it takes you a while because as I say I broke my heart.

Every time they come on the phone they were upsetting me and this was on my mind all the time. And in fact I got to the stage I used to say to [name]' "Tell them a lie, tell them I'm lying down." "I don't want to talk to them any more," you know.

And he used to go to the phone and' "Oh, she's lying down. She's got a wee bit of a headache," or something like that. He used to tell them lies because they were upsetting me.
 

Comments that she was wary of further problems and chose not to have breast reconstruction.

Once I was discharged from the hospital when I when I went for my first check-up with the surgeon he asked me if I wanted plastic surgery, transplant.

And I said "No," I said. He said' "Well you were so definite about that," he said. "Why, can I ask you why?" And I said' "Well, I don't want anything to flare up again inside." I said' "I just don't believe in these, I believe in letting nature take its course." I says I didn't want a transplant.

He says' "Well," he says "it's really up to yourself," he says. "But you can get it done on the National Health." I says' "No I don't want it. Thanks anyway."

And then with the second one I got off, five years ago, they never asked me about that. So now it's just I get a new prosthesis every now and again when I need them.
 

Explains how she over-rode the advice she was given and had a double mastectomy.

But he says, the surgeon came and seen me, he says' "You don't have to get your whole breast off," he says.

"It's just we're going to cut through this lump and take it away."

I says' "No." I says' "I want the whole breast off."

"Why?"

I says' "Because I don't want radiotherapy and I don't want chemo," I said, "and I'd be happier if you took the whole lot off so it will balance me out."

So whether he was pleased about that or not I don't know but that's what I wanted so I got that done and that was in 1996.

Did they try to change your mind?

Yes they did, aye, aye they did. They said it was so silly.

I says' "Well what's more silly is having one off and one just half there." I says' "No." I says' "And anyway I don't want the treatment, just take it all off."

So that was the answer they got. But I demanded it so got it.