Interview CC16

Age at interview: 34

Age at diagnosis: 32

Brief Outline: Diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2000. Miscarriage during time of tests and investigations. Radical hysterectomy and 28 lymph nodes removed.

Background: Housewife; cohabiting, 1 child.

She found it supportive talking to other patients.

Its like I said, each time I've been in hospital all the ladies that have gynaecological cancer, some are of the womb, some are ovarian, some are cervical or whatever. But when they find out that somebody else on this ward has it, they tend to gaggle together and I would say that that is a good thing. You really do need to talk to other people because they understand even better than the doctors and the nurses and even their own husbands, you know, lovers, whatever. Do talk to them, that is how I made friends with [friends name] which is the lady that you've already met and we, probably are best friends now. We don't so much socialise for anything other than our health but we do go to appointments together and phone each other up when we're worried. And we're so close, what happens to one happens to the other and it matters, it's made a big, big difference. So certainly talk to other people, most definitely.

Explains that she found her family's reactions to her illness difficult to deal with.

My family aren't very good at dealing with disease or ill health. Even though my sister's a doctor, when its personal its very, very different. And so I learned not to talk to them about it. But the only thing that they ever said was 'You're going to be fine, I'm telling you, you're going to be all right.' No one would discuss the options. I mean I was frightened what was gonna happen to my son. If I died he needed looking after. He doesn't see his father and what was gonna happen to the house and everything. What would happen if I needed six weeks radiotherapy, who was gonna help me, no one would go there, it was all 'We'll cross that bridge when we come to it,' and it was kind of shutters down on the subject.

Explains that she finds it upsetting attending her check-up appointments which are held in the gynaecology department.

All I'd been aware of that time and since is that I am the youngest person in there, in the cancer group, because this guy only deals with cancer so whoever signs up to see him at the desk that's what they're there with or have had. And they're all older and certainly elderly, I have never seen anyone my age and that breaks my heart because its held in the gynaecology department so at the same time as this cancer clinic's going on there are three other consultants holding their pregnancy clinics. And I'm sitting there and all the girls my age have all got big bumps or their new pregnancy pack, and their boyfriend's there and sometimes the mum and sometimes they've got pictures of scans and I sat there and it broke my heart. Even this time two, two days ago I just think I should be you, I should be the other one 

Describes what it has been like pursuing surrogacy and IVF options.

Fertility, we've been to see specialists who have done some tests and said yes my ovaries are functioning so I can go through the IVF. It's difficult because I don't have a normal womb, I'd have to have a laparoscopy to remove the eggs so it starts getting difficult. There's also a worry about giving me the drugs that will stimulate the ovaries because if I'm producing very big painful cysts anyway, you can get a dangerous hyper-stimulation, its a condition with IVF, which might not be very good for me in particular. My boyfriend's all for going for surrogacy with me purely because he knows it would make me so happy. He'd love to do it but he says he can live with it if he doesn't, whereas me, if someone tells me 'No you can't do this,' I don't now what I would do. I am trying, its very difficult, in fact I tried on Friday, I've been given a long list of clinics that have said they do, do surrogacy and IVF and when I phone them up they all claim they don't. The only one I can find at the moment is up on Harley Street.But that means going every day to have injections and have follicle scans and that's a long way and it's a lot of money on top of paying for IVF and also surrogacy. 

There is a charity which provides surrogate mothers called Cots. They're not allowed to make any profit from it but you pay their expenses. But again they are very hard to get hold of. They're only open between ten and twelve each day to speak to and the other practicalities are that we've got to be married. So although we were going to get married before it all got stopped and put on hold twice because of my hospital stays. And now I'd sort of decided I don't need to get married now, I love him enough and that's the be all and end all. But according to this surrogacy most clinics do say you have got to be married. So we've now got to get married as well as find the money for surrogacy.

Describes how losing her fertility because of her hysterectomy has led to her feeling less of a woman.

They do say that some women don't feel like women anymore after having a hysterectomy. It didn't enter my head at the time, it really didn't. It has done since. It doesn't make me feel less like a lady, or like dressing up and putting make-up on and things like that, but in the sense that no other man would ever want me if my relationship didn't work out because I can't have children, then that makes me less of a woman and Iwouldn't feel I had anything to offer to a man at all. So my self confidence in that sense has gone but that has been a progressive thing, it wasn't there at the beginning.
 

She suggests positive thinking, believing the diagnosis that doctors give and recognising that people do survive cancer.

You have got to try and be positive; I mean I wasn't at all. And I don't know how to tell people to be positive other than to try and believe what they're told. I constantly felt that they were hiding something from me. I was convinced that I was riddled with cancer and they weren't telling me because they didn't think I had long to live. I might as well be ignorant and make the most of it. Eighteen months later I know that's not true. I don't have cancer in my body and I haven't had it for eighteen months but I've wasted a lot of time being scared to death about it. 

But I advise anyone that gets into a mess like I did with it, to have people around and to see if you can get someone to stay with you in hospital. Just don't, don't be alone, that is the worst. Because often what goes on in your head, its ten times worse than what is actually going on in your body. There are still too many negative things about cancer and no one ever talks about the up sides, the people who do get better. The mythology's still there and if you are one of the people that's gone along believing it like I was, you've got to surround yourself with a lot of people who have come out the other side of it.