Jacky - Interview 25

Age at interview: 61

Age at diagnosis: 52

Brief Outline: Jacky was diagnosed with DCIS in her right breast in 1994, aged 52, and had two wide local excisions. Later, a second cancer was found in her left breast and Jacky had a mastectomy.

Background: Jacky is married and a retired civilian manager (police). Ethnic background / nationality' White British

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Jacky was recalled after having a routine mammogram in 1994, aged 52. She was frightened because she had had a mammogram before but had not been recalled on that occasion. After tests, she was diagnosed with DCIS in her right breast and felt extremely shocked and scared.

 

Jacky had a wide local excision shortly after her diagnosis and a second operation because there had been no clear margins. Six months later, at a follow-up appointment, another cancer was detected, this time in her left breast. Jacky had a mastectomy and felt frightened and worried about how it could make her look. She was also prescribed tamoxifen for five years.

 

After another six months, at a follow-up appointment about reconstructive surgery, the doctor found a lump under Jacky’s right arm. She said she was terrified because she thought it could be secondary breast cancer. It turned out to be non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that affects the lymphatic system. After treatment, Jacky decided to have breast reconstruction. During this surgery, an early skin cancer was detected and removed.

 

Jacky said that everything she had experienced had made her value life and live it more fully. She was involved in a breast cancer support group and also supported other women with breast cancer. She advised women to go for routine screening and to be breast aware.     

Jacky said, “If I had not attended my invitation for breast screening, none of my four cancers would have been detected. As it was, they were all found very early and I did not even require chemotherapy or radiotherapy.”

 

Jacky was interviewed for the Healthtalkonline website in 2003.

The word 'cancer' frightened Jacky. She knew nothing about DCIS and desperately wanted to understand what it was.

I went into this little room and they told me that I had cancer in situ [of the right breast]. Now the only word I heard was cancer and I was on my own, I didn’t have anyone with me and I thought, what are they saying? Cancer, what do they mean, what do they mean? I’ve got cancer? I’ve got cancer? And when they said, “cancer in situ” I didn’t know what they meant so I said, “what’s cancer in situ?” And they said, “oh, it’s a very early cancer very early forming and it’s something which will, if it isn’t addressed, will become a larger cancer. So it’s a very early form and you, it’s nothing terribly to worry about.”

 

But I was really frightened because it was something that I’d never touched upon before, I had no idea. Cancer was not in my world and, suddenly, here I was being told I had got cancer. And that was the only word I heard and I was frightened and I didn’t have any information. I didn’t know where to go to get information, I needed to know what cancer in situ was and nobody could tell me.

 

So I came home and I was so frightened and I didn’t know who to turn to or who to speak to, I just screamed and screamed. And I phoned up the nurses and they just kept telling me the same thing and I thought, well, yes, that’s fine but it’s not you that’s got the cancer, it’s me, and you keep telling me this and I need to know more.

Jacky feels that breast screening saved her life and urges other women to attend. She points out that the procedure is quick and that the risk of breast cancer increases with age.

Well, I would say to them, please go and take the screening because it saved my life and it could save your life. I know some people are frightened in case they find anything but that's what you want them to do. That you want them to find it because if they don't find it, it isn't going to go away. And the sooner they find it, the much higher chance you have of completely successful treatment and don't, at the moment I think the ceiling is 60 for mammograms but that is now being extended to 70.

 

But if it hasn't in your area yet reached 70, there will be a number that you can get from NHS Direct where you can phone and refer yourself if you are over 60. If you're over 70 and you can still do that because some ladies think that because after, because the mammograms stop at 60 or 70 they're no longer at risk. But, unfortunately, the older you get, the more at risk you are so because you're 70 don't think you're not at risk.

 

So please, take these mammograms, it's only a few minutes pressure on your breast. It's only ten minutes to go through the whole process and it's a life-saver and it could save you so much grief. So please, please do have it. And I'm so glad that I did because it's such a life-saver and I just wish they could do this for every sort of cancer because it is such a preventer, preventive cure. Please, please have your mammogram done.

Jacky wanted support more than information and to talk to other women in a similar situation. At the time she was diagnosed, there were very few breast cancer support groups.

To be honest, I’ve never really wanted that much information. I know everyone’s different, I didn’t really want to know too much about the nitty-gritty of what’s going on. In hindsight, perhaps I wish I had because I haven’t got terribly, a terrible amount of information of the sort of cancer I’ve had. But I just thought, right, I can do my job and I know how to do it and I want you just to do yours. Just do what you think is right, tell me what I need to know but I don’t want to know too much. And that’s how I dealt with it at that time. And I put myself in the hands of the professionals and left them to it.

 

What I really needed was support and I needed to speak to somebody who’d been through what I was going through. And, eventually, I managed to find a little bit of that but not as much as I would have wished. But since I’ve become well I have found out there is a lot of that sort of support around and I, in fact, belong to an organisation which is Breast Cancer Care and I do give a lot of that support to other ladies. And I would, just wish I’d had that nine years ago when I was going through my stuff.

Jacky found it hard to accept she had only one breast. She couldn't wear what she wanted and the prosthesis sometimes fell out. Later she had breast reconstruction.

I didn’t want to talk about reconstruction at that time because I’d had enough of hospitals. But I find it very hard to come to accept that I only had one breast. I hated the flat scar that I had there, I hated the fact that I couldn’t wear clothes I wanted. If I went to buy clothes, my prosthesis would fall out and I’d just pick it up and go home because I couldn’t be bothered. I longed to wear a nice swimsuit and just to feel a whole woman again. So I went, after six months, I went for another check-up and the doctor started talking to me about reconstruction.

Jacky advises women to be breast aware and to see their GP about any breast changes instead of dismissing them.

Well, yes, I think I would like ladies to be very familiar with their breasts and at one time it was considered we had to feel our breast for lumps, particularly at certain times of the month. But I think the feeling on that has changed now and it isn’t a matter of a certain time of the month and not always in the monthly cycles necessarily, nor for lumps either because I didn’t have any lumps. But I want ladies to be as familiar with their breasts as they are with their face, you know.

 

And I’m going to be getting a little lump here on my face or my eyebrows need tweezing, well be like that about your breast. When you’re having a bath or a shower, just feel your breast with soapy hands, you can feel, you know. If you’re making a cup of tea, you could just sort of feel yourself around the breasts. Look in the mirror and get familiar with the shape of your breasts and if you see one is slightly small, larger or, than the other one or one looks a bit swollen or you’ve got something wrong with your nipple, it’s going inwards or there’s some puckering around your nipple, it’s probably perfectly all right but you and see your GP and let him know.

 

So get familiar with your breasts and if you notice any changes at all, don’t think, oh it’s probably the time of the month or I’ve been wearing a bra that’s too tight or anything. Anything at all that you feel that is different, go and see your doctor. And if you’re not happy with what the doctor says, you have a perfect right to insist that you have more information. If the nipple is puckering, you’ve even got a little vein there that you didn’t have before. If you feel very stiff under your arm, you feel around, that your neck is a bit stiff, not stiff but something not quite right here and the doctor just says, “oh, it’s probably just the wrong time of the month etc.” And you’re not happy with that, then you make sure that, you feel strong enough to say, “well really, doctor, I’m really feeling more concerned, I would really like to be referred to see somebody about it because it’s really worrying me” and be strong for yourself.

 

So, look after yourselves is what I’m saying, you’re the important person in your life as so you are important to your husband and your children, so they need you, so you look after yourself because you need to.