Interview 23

Age at interview: 52

Brief Outline:

Attended for first routine mammogram at age 51. Was diagnosed with DCIS. Had a mastectomy and is taking tamoxifen.

Background:

A housewife, married with no children.

Didn't know what to expect of the core biopsy and would have liked more information beforehand.

He mentioned biopsy, he said, and then, "I can do that now". He went through the procedure with the needle just so that I would hear the click at the end and how they did it and said "now don't worry and once it does that, we will give you a local anaesthetic, if you feel any pain whatsoever we can give you more". And then, I thought well, I don't like needles particularly, so I didn't know what to expect and so I thought, I'll let them get on with it. [laughing] So I'm a bit of a coward, so I wasn't watching at the beginning, and then and I thought 'I think I'll have a look at this'. It was quite fascinating [laughs] because I could see the needle going in but I did think that five samples did seem a lot. 

Yeah. So he, did he click five times? 

Oh yes it went in five times. Yeah, yeah. And I think I looked after about the third. And I was amazed at how long it was. And that you could see it actually moving round inside you, it was.

On the screen?

Yeah. Quite fascinating really [laughs]. And then it was, they just, I'd got to wait outside until the bleeding had stopped a little bit and then went to the desk to make an appointment for the following week.

When you would get the results? 

When I get the results. And they gave me a piece of paper and that's when I knew I'd had a core biopsy. Didn't even know, they say 'have you got any questions?' but you need some input to ask questions. And I hadn't anything to, no guidelines whatsoever so, nothing to go on. So, that was where we were from there. 

So you had an appointment to come back in two weeks?

One week.

One week?

Yeah

Okay, you didn't ask any questions because you didn't feel you had enough information?

That's right. 

Had not heard of DCIS before she was told she had it.

So we went off to the hospital which was some distance away and still no problems and there was the same radiographer that I saw at the mobile unit and she showed me what they were looking at and she just called it 'chalk'. That's all I knew.

And then I had to wait and see the consultant radiologist and he did an ultrasound and then said, mentioned pre-cancerous cells and said "we'll do a biopsy and we can do it now" and I just thought "Bloody hell they're looking for cancer" [laughs]. 

So I phoned up NHS direct, phoned up Breast Cancer Care, only knew it was called 'chalk', had no other information. Oh and they'd mentioned calcifications, so that was the only thing I could mention.

Because I'd been, heard about pre-cancerous cells my husband did ask him if it was something leading up to cancer or cancer and he said it was cancer. They took us to see the breast care sister and she gave us a piece of paper with 'DCIS' on. That was it. That was all we knew. And we had to make a decision [about when to have the mastectomy] based on that. 
 

She's wary of HRT and its long-term effects so refused HRT despite a family history of osteoporosis.

You were reading the book 'the myths of the menopause'. You never had any menopausal symptoms. What, did this book reaffirm that kind of thing?

It told me quite a bit about HRT because when my mother was alive she kept saying ' Have you started, are you going through the menopause yet?' 'Oh go on HRT.' "Mum! There's nothing wrong with me!" And HRT to me is more of a problem, I think it's just, it was an American doctor who discovered it and they've given it people for years and years and years. They don't know the long term affects of it. It's just like the pill, what they don't know but they can certainly shut women up by putting them on it. And that is not a good thing. 

And my mother had osteoporosis so my GP, I go to, mine's a lady and she did mention HRT once and I said, for osteoporosis, and I said you know "I'm not going on HRT, you can put me on Didronel [calcium tablets]" [laughs] so that was sort of it, you know, I wouldn't have gone on it. But I didn't need to. So...