Janet - Interview 50

Brief Outline: Janet was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003. She was told she'd need a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Janet chose to have chemotherapy before surgery and was able to have a lumpectomy instead. She also had tamoxifen and Femara.

Background: Janet is married with two adult children. She is a retired broadcast journalist. Ethnic background/nationality: White British.

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Janet had always feared getting breast cancer and dreaded the thought of having a mastectomy. In 2003 she found a lump and showed her daughter, a GP, who advised her to see her own GP as soon as she could. She was referred to hospital and further tests showed she had breast cancer. Her consultant recommended she have a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Janet felt shocked and horrified at the thought of having a mastectomy and sought a second opinion in the hope that another consultant might recommend a lumpectomy instead. The second surgeon, though, recommended the same treatments. Janet went back to her first consultant and asked whether she could have chemotherapy before surgery rather than after it, in the hope that it might shrink the tumour and rule out the need for a mastectomy. Her consultant agreed that, in her case, having chemotherapy first would be possible.

For Janet, one of the most difficult things about having chemotherapy was being recognised by other people in hospital – she was a well-known BBC broadcast journalist. Throughout her treatment, Janet said she was only sick once. She tried the cold cap because she did not want to lose her hair. After only one session, though, Janet started losing her hair and bought a couple of wigs. One of these was made of real hair and had to be looked after in the same way as real hair. During chemotherapy, Janet also featured on a BBC programme in the hope of encouraging other people to face cancer positively.

Tests showed very quickly that Janet’s tumour was shrinking and, after chemotherapy, her consultant told her that it had shrunk enough for her to have a lumpectomy. This was on the understanding that if, during surgery, doctors found that a mastectomy was needed, they could go ahead with it.

Janet had a lumpectomy and results showed that all the cancer had been removed. After healing, she had five weeks of radiotherapy. She was also prescribed tamoxifen for five years and, throughout this time, had hot flushes, a common side effect. After five years on tamoxifen, Janet was prescribed Femara for two years.

After her lumpectomy, Janet had a partial reconstruction. She said she has felt better about herself since cancer and was very happy with the results of her surgery.

Janet encouraged women to be positive throughout treatment and to ask questions if they are uncomfortable with anything.

Janet had always feared getting breast cancer. Her daughter felt the lump and advised her to see her GP.

I think breast cancer was something that I’d been scared of all my life. It was just something that loomed in the background and I thought, if ever I get breast cancer I don’t want treatment. I don’t want to have surgery. I shall just give in to it and die. That was just the thought that was going through my mind at times. And then suddenly found a lump. It wasn’t what I expected the lump to feel like. It was flattish and hardish. And quite, and it was big. And I thought, I persuaded myself it was perhaps a muscle in the breast, goodness knows. It was just the only thing I could think of. And I thought, right that’s probably what it is and it’ll go down in a few days. I’ve overdone it at the gym and it’ll go away.

We went on holiday and it didn’t go away. We came back and I went to visit my daughter, she’s a GP. And I said to her, “I’ve got a lump, I’m a little bit worried about it.” And she said, “Do you want me to look at it?” So without really thinking about the consequences and how it would affect her, I said, “Yes please,” you know. So she did, she examined me. And she was very calm and she said, “Yes,” she said, “I think perhaps you just ought to go and get it checked out with your GP as soon as you can.” And that was it, she said nothing more.

And I came home and what I didn’t know was that she and her husband left, because they, we were at my daughter-in-laws. And just up the road she absolutely burst into floods of tears. Because she knew as a GP that it was so big that she was afraid she wasn’t going to have a mother in a few months time. And her mother wasn’t going to be at her wedding. So she was dreadfully upset and I had no idea about this.

I went to my GP. I got an appointment the next day. Went to him. And he examined me and he said, “Yes, you’ve got a lump.” He said, “It’s probably cancer, and it’s probably malignant.”

We went off to see a specialist in [place name]. And he said, “Well,” he said, “Yes, it’s probably malignant and it’s going to have to be a mastectomy and chemotherapy and radiotherapy because it’s so big.”
I was absolutely horrified. Absolutely shocked. I couldn’t get my head around the idea of having a mastectomy. You can call it vanity, I don’t know. But I just couldn’t get my head round it. So I said, “Well I want another opinion.” And he put us in touch with another surgeon in [another city]. And I went to see a surgeon and a plastic surgeon together and they examined and they said, “Yes, it’s got to be a mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiotherapy.”

Janet was delighted that her tumour shrunk after chemotherapy and that she did not need a mastectomy. She felt uncomfortable being recognised in hospital because she was a well-known TV broadcaster.

I went back to see the first surgeon in [place name] that I’d seen. And I said, “Look, okay. I realise that your diagnosis is obviously the only one because I’ve had that backed up. But can I have chemotherapy first please?” Because I just had it in my mind that chemotherapy sometimes shrinks tumours. And I thought if I can get this tumour shrunk sufficiently I may not have to have a mastectomy. So the surgeon looked at me and he said, “Well,” he said, “it’s not usual. It’s not the way I do things, but yes alright. It won’t make any difference, but you can have the chemo first if you want to.”

So the next week I was down to start chemo, and I went along and that was a really awful experience in a way. Now it was only awful to me, it wasn’t awful because of anything that they did. It was just that I knew that I was a recognised face because I’d been on television a lot. And I was very embarrassed at going into a huge room with a lot of people waiting, and I didn’t want people to look at me. I didn’t want people to stare at me. I didn’t want people to know anything about me and about what I was going through. Even in spite of the fact that I’d talked to friends about it.

And so I think I was very defensive about going in for my treatment.

And I can’t remember if it was after that first treatment or if I’d had a couple of treatments. And I had an appointment for a check up at the hospital and the nurse examined me and she measured the lump. And she was amazed because it had shrunk.

After just one session?

After just, well I think it was after just one session, as far as I can remember. I think it was a couple of weeks after the first session. And she was amazed because it had been 5.2 centimetres, and it had gone down to 3.6. And she said, “My goodness,” she said, “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” I was thinking, “Wow, yes. Result.” And she said, “I think we’re going to have to put a marker in because if this carries on over six sessions, we’re going to lose it. We’re not going to know where it is.” So they arranged that I would have a marker inserted.

I can’t remember when in the treatment that actually happened but I do remember that, before I started having the chemotherapy, the lump was actually so noticeable it was actually, I could see that it was altering the shape of my breast. And the nipple was turning because of the lump. And you could almost see it changing day by day.

After the chemotherapy?

No this was before the chemotherapy. It was getting bigger and bigger. But then after the chemotherapy, again, I could see it altering; it was changing slightly, ever so slightly day by day.

Janet was prescribed Femara after having tamoxifen for five years. She has had some joint pain but was unsure whether this was because of the Femara.

You mentioned you’re on letrozole…?

Letrozole, yes. Well I went to see my oncologist because I’ve been having check ups once a year. After I stopped the regular check ups they said, “We’ll see you once a year.” And it alternated at first between the oncologist and the surgeon. And then the last couple of years the oncologist has seen me.

And she has said at the end of the tamoxifen period, at the end of five years she said, “Right you’re coming off the tamoxifen now.” But she said, “There is something else you can go on to. She didn’t seem to hold out great hopes for it. She said, “It’s there if you want it, but if you don’t, get on with it. Don’t worry, just drop it and leave it.” And I thought well I’ll give it a go.

And she said, “You may find you get aches and pains, a lot of people do complain of aches and pains in their joints.” But I was already getting aches and pains anyway, and whether that was from other medication I was having to take, I don’t know. But anyway I went onto the medication and yeah it’s been alright. I don’t know whether it’s doing any good or not, but it’s worth trying.

And you haven’t had any major aches and pains, enough to make you feel, “Oh it could be the letrozole and I don’t want to take it now?”

I do get a lot of stiffness, but a) whether that’s my age, whether that’s the letrozole, whether it’s the other, whether it’s the statins that I’m on for other problems, I don’t know. It’s not nice, but I don’t let it stop me doing the things I want to do. If I want to do something, I’ll do my damndest to do it.

And how long have you been taking that now?

I think I’ve been on the letrozole about a, just over a year now. So I think I only take it for another year and then I come off that. Whether there’s anything after that I don’t know.

Janet was a broadcast journalist and carried on working during chemotherapy. She featured on a BBC programme in the hope of encouraging other people to face cancer positively.

I was in quite a privileged position in a way because, being a well known face in the region, when it came to actually having the treatment I decided to go public with it.

And just at the time I’d been diagnosed I’d also booked my first solo art exhibition for the October of that year. And then I was diagnosed with the cancer, and I thought what am I going to do? Do I carry on or do I just drop everything and say, “No, I’m not going to do it.” And I thought no I’m not going to give into it like that. I’m going to carry on, I’m going to do it. It’s going to give me something to aim for. So I carried on getting paintings ready throughout the year while I was having chemo. And then it came to the time of the exhibition, which happened to coincide with breast cancer awareness weeks. So my colleagues at the BBC decided that was an opportune moment to actually come and do a piece with me. There I was in a wig, having lost all my hair, I’d had the chemo, I was waiting for the operation. Oh no, I think I was, no I was still in the chemo, that’s right. I was still having chemo; it was coming up to the end of it. And so they sort of did the interview at home, and then at the exhibition over in Oakham. And that was really quite interesting. But I felt I wanted to encourage people to face up to it.

I also had the opportunity of doing another programme later on, the following year after I’d finished treatment. My hair still hadn’t, was in the process of growing back. And it was sort of just at the point where it, you could look at it, and yes it was a just about a hairstyle. But I was still wearing a wig a lot of the time. And so my daughter and I were invited to go on this car boot sale type programme for charity. We wanted to do it for cancer research. And there was another team doing it for another charity. And we were taken, we went down to this car boot sale.

And so for the first day of filming I wore the wig. That was when we bought all the stuff we were going to sell the next day. Then the next day we went to a different car boot, and we were filmed selling all the stuff and trying to raise as much money as we could. And I took the wig off for that one because I thought I want people not to be afraid of wearing wigs. And I thought if they can see me the first time, and perhaps not be too aware that I was wearing a wig, and then be shown in the next part of the programme that actually it was a wig. And it really didn’t look that bad, that it would, it would encourage people.

Janet had several wigs, one of which was made of real hair. She had it cut and styled and felt confident wearing it.

I made an appointment and went along to them. And they’d got these wonderful wigs with scalps in them. They’re sort of like a flesh coloured mesh but it means that if the wind blows, you don’t need to worry about it looking peculiar if the hair parts. Which is what happens with cheap wigs. It was more expensive. But, you know, I thought well if it’s a real hair wig at least it’ll look like real hair. It won’t look like something nylon.

So I went, made an appointment, and I went along and they’d ordered the colour that I needed. They’d matched my hair colour because I’d gone before I’d lost all my hair. And they saw what my hair was like, and sort of length that it was, and the shape it was and so on. And so then this wig arrived, and I went along for a fitting. And they cut it on me and styled it. And so I had a proper head of hair. And that was really nice. It was lovely.

It does have it drawbacks. I mean with an artificial hair wig you can just take it off, you can dunk it in the water, you can wash it. You can shake it and it’ll dry and you don’t have to do anything with it. With a real hair wig, obviously you have to treat it like real hair. You have to shampoo it; you have to dry it and set it and look after it just like you look after hair that’s growing. So that was more hard work, but on the other hand it wasn’t likely to flare up and burn in the same way that an artificial hair wig does if you lean over the cooker too far, that sort of thing.

So I had an assortment of wigs, which was great. It was nice. And I felt very much more confident knowing that I didn’t have to go out looking bald. Because that was another thing. That, it was interesting because when I was told I’d got breast cancer the two things that really worried me most of all were a) being disfigured, losing the breast and b) losing my hair. I know that sounds vain but that was all part of me being a woman.

I also discovered the use of toupee tape, which is wonderful. It’s what actresses use to hold their clothes on, when they’ve got clothes that are fairly revealing, and they don’t want them to gape open. And so I got a roll of toupee tape and I used that. It was absolutely fantastic. I could go out in the wind without worrying too much and the wig would stick on. That was amazing. So I didn’t have to worry about my hair and I felt fairly confident in how I looked.

Janet had both breasts reconstructed after a lumpectomy and is very happy with how they look.

I did actually have plastic surgery after the lumpectomy because obviously they’d taken quite a lot out. And so I did have some reconstruction. And it was fantastic, absolutely fantastic. And I have felt so good about myself ever since I had cancer.


I’ve now got the boobs I always wanted [laughs]. And as my daughter said, “How many people get a boob job on the NHS?”

So did you have reconstruction on both your?

I had to, yes. They couldn’t just do it, when I said could I have reconstruction I thought oh they’ll just do something on the left hand side that’s been affected. But when it actually came to it they said, “No, I’m sorry we can’t just do one side, we’ve got to match both sides.” And it was a really, really funny experience because the surgeon, the plastic surgeon said to me, “What I want you to do is go away and get some of those plastic sandwich bags that seal together.” And he said, “I want you to play about with water in these bags, and put them in your bra and play about and see what size you want.”

So I had to go away and play about with these plastic bags, fitting them into a bra to see how many millimetres or centilitres of water I wanted, the equivalent of size boobs for him to put in. And so I thought well I’ll be very modest about it. I won’t go, I won’t be ridiculous about it. But I found a size that I felt comfortable with that I thought was just nice. And so I went back and I said, “Right, that’s the size I want.” And he said, “Okay, well we’ll try and match it up as closely as we can.”

So some women go slightly bigger, some women actually said they went smaller. What was your choice?

Well I’d always been very small and that was, I’d always been very embarrassed about being a bit on the small side. And I actually, when I think back and when I look at other women, I wasn’t that small. But you just feel, you know, you’re never satisfied with your own body. And I thought oh it would be nice just to be that little bit bigger. So I did, I did go just a fraction bigger.

They just looked very, very good. And I was, I’m very, very pleased with them. And, you know, I wrote and thanked the surgeon afterwards because I think,

Was there any scarring, a bit that you?

Not now. I mean there was, all they did was cut underneath the breast, so it was in the crease underneath. So I think that, yeah, I’d forgotten that. That was another thing that bothered me about having surgery, was losing the nipple. I know this absolutely sounds ridiculous but I was so determined I did not want to lose my nipples. And so of course I didn’t because of the lumpectomy. They managed to avoid that and so that was good. And so the scarring from the reconstruction is just literally underneath. And you can’t even see that now it’s disappeared. It was a little bit there, but it was very, very neat. So no they did a fantastic job.