Interview 18

Age at interview: 39

Brief Outline:

Discovered a lump at age 36, which was cancerous. Had treatment for invasive breast cancer. Now has annual mammograms.

Background:

A medical secretary. Married with 2 children.

She discusses finding a breast lump.

What happened was I actually found the lump myself, I was in the shower at the time, and I found this lump because I did my own examinations, more or less every month I did them, it was a routine thing. I found the lump and I thought "oh my god,what is this". When I came out of the shower, I asked my husband to check it as well. He couldn't feel anything at all, so I went to work and I talked it over with a couple of girls. They basically just said "oh, could be a cyst and nothing more than that, but phone up the doctor and find out". So I did.

I made an appointment, luckily I got an appointment very quickly with her, I explained to the receptionist what was going on. I went to the doctor explained that I had found a lump, she felt the lump and said "right, OK, we'll write a letter to the hospital", which she did.

She had all diagnostic tests done on one day but had to wait a few days to get the results.

The doctor there that I saw, the Consultant, he did the ultrasound scan and he kept on saying "it doesn't look good" and I think from there, I more or less knew that I had cancer. But I still didn't want to believe it at the time, you know, he said "it just doesn't look good, it doesn't look good" and then he said "OK, I want you to go for a needle biopsy, a mammogram and see what they find there".

But that couldn't be done until the afternoon, so we had to go back in the afternoon to the hospital and they told us to go back on Thursday to have the results. When we went back on the Thursday, in the room was sitting the doctor, the Macmillan Nurse, and there were some medical students there as well and I just looked and I thought "no, something doesn't seem right, it just doesn't" you know "not right at all". I spoke to my husband the day before on the Wednesday and I kept on saying to him "what do you think, what do you think?" and he was like, he's had an open mind all the way, you know, he wouldn't believe it, he said "I'm keeping an open mind".