Vicky

Age at interview: 74

Age at diagnosis: 74

Brief Outline:

Vicky took part in the 100,000 Genomes Project when she started treatment for breast cancer. She hopes that research can help find a cure for cancer.

Background:

Vicky is a retired retail assistant, and has been a widow for 22 years. She is white English.

More about me...

Vicky was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2016. The diagnosis came as quite a shock as she was otherwise in very good health and kept herself very fit and active. 

Vicky was invited to take part in the 100,000 Genomes Project whilst waiting to see her consultant about her mastectomy. She was handed some leaflets and went through them and filled out the consent forms with her daughter. Blood and tissue samples were then taken during her operation.

Vicky was “happy to help” and sees taking part in the project as a way of “giving a little back” for the treatments she has received over the years. Victoria had already previously taken part in a medical research in a pneumococcal vaccine trial, where she was given injections over the course of six months. She says she didn’t know if she was given the actual drug or the placebo, but feels pleased she took part because she hasn’t had a “full-blown” cold since.  

While Vicky acknowledges that she may not directly benefit from the 100,000 Genomes Project, she hopes that medical research like this will have benefits in the future and that it may help her daughter and granddaughters. She feels that if medical research can identify genetic links to cancer than perhaps a cure can be found. She encourages others to take part and feels that the more people take part in research, the bigger the chances are of finding a cure. 

Vicky can’t remember what she understood about the project when she was asked to take part because she and her daughter were taking in her cancer diagnosis.

And you mentioned when the - Was it a nurse that approached you about the Hundred Thousand Genomes project, or?

Well obviously somebody that works in the hospital, in amongst the cancer haematology wards, yeah.

Yeah.

As I said, I was there seeing the consultant. And while we were waiting for the consultant, this gentleman came in and asked would I be prepared, you know. And I said, "Yeah. Well, why not?"

And what happened? Did he take you into another room to explain it? Or did they –

My daughter - He gave me these leaflets, and my daughter and I sort of filled them in between us, sort of thing. Hopefully we were quite accurate. And I really haven't heard a lot since.

So, I don't know what they've done. I presume they've taken biopsies, they did ask permission if they could. And I said yeah, that's fine.

What did they sort of ask to do? What did you understand by the project?

[Sigh] I don't really know, to be honest. I can't remember [laughing]. I had a lot of trauma at the time, being told I'd got cancer and all the rest of it. And my daughter was emotional about it.

I'm a bit more 'oh well, you know, if it is, it is'. And you cope, but. My daughter was quite emotional about it all, and panicking a bit. And as I said, I had to get used to the idea of having to have the mastectomy.

Vicky feels that taking part is her way of “giving a little bit back”.

Well I was approached while we, while we were on a visit. We had to see the consultant, and while we were on that visit - my daughter and I - we were approached, as I said, by a couple of people who talked about trials. And I said yes, I'd be quite willing to help anybody - it won't necessarily help me, but it will help future generations. Because I'd already done this pneumococcal trial. I'm quite happy to help. I don't mind. I mean, I'm old, I'm almost, you know [laughing]. 

The, the point is - I've had lots of help. I’ve, I suffered for twelve years with artificial - with having hips done, one after the other, and half a knee. And therefore it was my way of perhaps giving a little bit back. Not a lot, but a little bit.

To the sort of medical -

Yeah. As I said, the [hospital] were very good to me with my joints. And that. And I just thought well, I can't do much for them. But so a little - a trial like that, fine, I was quite happy to do it.

Vicky doesn’t mind if she doesn’t hear anything back as she feels she has helped as much as she can.

And if you don't hear any results from Genomics England, what do you feel about that?

I don't mind. It might not be [sigh] - [laughing] Maybe my biopsies won't be worth anything. I don't know. I don't really know what I think, what to expect. I don't know. It's all a learning curve. Like another friend of mine who's got cancer, she said, "It's a journey. And you don't know any more than the next - what the next week will bring." You don't.

And so you mentioned there you're not so bothered if you didn't hear results, or hear anything back?

No. I mean, obviously they'll do a lot of people. They'll approach a lot of people for this sort of thing. Some will help. Some won't be able to help. Some -thing, if I don't hear anything, then - you know - fine. I've done what I could do, and I can't do any more, so.

Vicky, who was diagnosed with breast cancer, feels if they can find a “credible link” then they could find a “credible cure”.

But you don't know. I mean, there's no guarantee it comes down through the family. I don't think anybody really knows. They're looking at it to find - If they can find a credible link, then obviously they can find a credible cure. Hopefully.

[Sigh] Well, I know there's a lot of work goes on in the laboratory. My second granddaughter is doing forensic science and biology, and laboratory work. She's doing her Masters at the moment.

And I'm hoping that somebody like her will suddenly - in a laboratory somewhere - will find a cure.

A cure.

And which is obviously the basic reason everybody's doing all this work. So, that's - you know. That's what I hope for. I would hate to think in the future that they're in the same position as me. Especially while they're young. Because they're in their twenties. I'd hate to think I'd left that legacy.