Shirley - Interview 22

Age at interview: 72

Age at diagnosis: 70

Brief Outline:

Shirley was diagnosed with DCIS in 2006, aged 70. She had a wide local excision and radiotherapy, and also took part in a clinical trial.

Background:

Shirley is a married fruit grower with four adult children. Ethnic background / nationality' English / Scottish

More about me...

Shirley had not expected an invitation for a routine mammogram because she was over the age of 70 so, when she was invited out of the blue, she was ‘delighted’. After having the mammogram, she was recalled and given tests, including a core biopsy, which she found very uncomfortable. The tests were inconclusive and doctors told her that she would need to have a wide local excision to find out if anything was wrong. After this operation, doctors told her that she had DCIS.

 

Shirley later had radiotherapy, which she found convenient to travel to every day, though slightly tiring. After a discussion with her oncologist and surgeon, Shirley decided not to take tamoxifen because she didn’t want any of the possible side effects at the age of 70, such as hot flushes, weight gain and bleeding.

 

Shirley had never heard of DCIS before and was shocked when told she had it. She said she had always assumed her chances of getting breast cancer were small because she had had four children, breast-fed them all, and had never smoked. After being diagnosed, Shirley contacted a friend who had had DCIS in the past and had done a lot of research into it. She found the time between biopsy and wide local excision very worrying and talking to her friend about the diagnosis and treatments helped.

 

Shirley was also given the option of taking part in a clinical trail called the Sentinel Node Trial. This involved having four lymph nodes removed, surgery that Shirley said she would be having anyway so agreed to take part because she wanted her participation to benefit other people in the future.

 

Shirley said that routine mammograms are ‘absolutely essential and terribly important’ and that she was happy with the care she had received from health professionals.

 

Shirley was interviewed for the Healthtalkonline website in 2008.

Shirley was over seventy and invited for breast screening out of the blue, after which she was...

How do you feel about routine mammograms now, in the light of your experience?

I think it's absolutely essential, and terribly important to go and, you know, I hope my daughters will both go. I told them to go anyway. Both said, ìWell, you know, it was, you happened to be seventy by the time it was discovered, and we think that we'll hang on until we're actually asked to go.î But my daughter-in-law has been, which is sort of nothing to do with me, because cousins of hers have had a desperate time, and is going now regularly, thankfully.

Do you know why you were called out of the blue after you'd turned seventy?

I haven't a clue [laughs]. I don't know. I don't know. I didn't ask.

But glad that you were.

Well, delighted, because I wouldn't have known possibly for about eighteen months.

Shirley's biopsy result was inconclusive, so she had to have surgery. She found the biopsy more painful than the surgery.

On the 12th September I was called back to see [consultant], who’s the top man, and he said the result was inconclusive but they were concerned, and he sort of suddenly said to me, “Well, it may mean an operation” and I went into a sort of thinking, “Help.” And they hadn’t discovered anything, and this was all a bit much.

 

And the result was inconclusive still, and I was then booked in for wide excision, which happened on October 1st. I did go into hospital that night but the wire was put in the next morning. I had to be taken from the general hospital back to the [specialist hospital] because they hadn’t the machinery for this at the general, and then, having had that done, back to the general, and I was in and done terribly quickly, and out the next day. And it was actually remarkably pain free and good, because it was only a tiny little bit, I think, removed.

Radiotherapy was much easier than Shirley had expected. Parking at the hospital was the most difficult aspect of it. She had very few side effects.

What about the radiotherapy? What was that like?

 

I think I was lucky in fact, because it’s actually easier to get into the local town and the whole thing it was sort of an hour from the house and back again. The only thing difficult was parking [laughs]. But yes, I think I found it, after the initial couple of times, it was awfully easy, and the staff were highly efficient and charming and good. And I think I got quite tired, and, no, it was all, having thought of it as a terrible ordeal, I think, basically, it was moderately easy. And I didn’t burn, unlike a friend of mine who’s just had it, who sounds desperately sore and miserable. And I think I’ve been remarkably fortunate.

Shirley didn't want to be confused by all the information on the internet and preferred to talk to health professionals.

The DCIS, on being told, for me personally - and, okay, I had wonderful help and advice from a friend, an expert - I didn’t go on the internet or anything. I didn’t ask for a second opinion. I didn’t, which I could have, I suppose, under BUPA, gone off to London or what have you. I decided to stick totally with the NHS team in [local town] and they were absolutely brilliant, basically.

 

And what would have been your concern about going on the internet for information?

 

That I’d have been bamboozled by the different things different people were saying and, you know, that the sort of probably multiple choices etcetera…

 

Yes, so you’d rather really just be guided by a doctor you trust about what to do.

 

Yes, and our GP in fact, because I’d had the mammogram and I hadn’t gone to him saying, “I think I have a problem”, he actually wasn’t involved at all, bar the one time, and it wasn’t him, it was one of the lady doctors in the practice. I did get desperately uptight and worried about things. I think it was in between biopsy and the wide excision I got, and I did get more than a bit concerned at that point. And a delightful person, and you know, it was all quite good in the end [laughs].

 

What did they do for you? Did they prescribe anything?

 

Well talk. No, no.

 

Just talked to you.

 

No, no. I was asked if I wanted some sleeping pills and I said, “No.” I hate taking pills [laughs].

 

So it was just someone to talk to be reassured?

 

Just someone, yes, yes.

Shirley was pleased to have a routine mammogram after the age of seventy but didn't expect to have a biopsy.

I just received a letter asking me to go in on the eighteenth of August. And I thought, “You know, how nice of them.” I was over age and hadn’t expected it, and I’d go because it was sensible. And I went and I hadn’t any idea that something might be amiss. And on September 5th I had a letter recalling me and asking me to go in and have a biopsy, a needle biopsy. Alarm bells had begun to go rather badly, I think, and they had difficulty in pinpointing…. Anyway, I had the needle biopsy and I went back actually a couple of days afterwards, having been told that it might have to be a core biopsy, which I think is one of the most uncomfortable and nasty things I’ve ever had done, because they hadn’t in fact just taken one bit. I think they took six and it was horrid.