Interview LC39

Age at interview: 73

Age at diagnosis: 70

Brief Outline: Diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer October 2000, followed by radiotherapy from outside the chest to the lung. In 2002 developed pain in the back, treated with radiotherapy.

Background: Clerk (retired), widowed, 2 children.

Explains what it is like to have a bone scan.

A bone scan is very similar to any other scan you don't have to take your clothes off, you can be scanned fully clothed and unless you're claustrophobic it's not an unpleasant experience. The part that's like a tunnel goes, starts at your head and gradually goes down your body. It takes about twenty minutes and as you come out of the tunnel or the tunnel moves down you, you can usually watch on a screen what's happening, you see it gradually moving down your body. That's about all there is to it really.

Describes what it was like in the simulator before the radiotherapy.

He said [the doctor], "When you leave my office there'll be a young lady waiting to meet you and she'll explain anything you want to know," and that's when I met my cancer nurse and she's an angel. She made me a cup of tea and she told me that I'd got non-small cell cancer which I think is the best sort to have. She explained that I would have a course of radiotherapy, which hopefully would shrink the cancer and that I had to go to our local hospital, not the same one, the one on the outskirts of town. And you attend something called a simulator and the only thing I can say about that is when I lay on the simulator machine it was like being in a space ship. There were little lights in the ceiling, you were in a room, you were lying flat on the bed and there were, voices from people outside the room and they were saying things like 93, 74. And that's all I could think it was like, lying in a spaceship with all these strange things going on. It was in fact, a simulator is a machine that measures you, measures your tumour, gives them an idea where to direct the radiotherapy, and a short time after that the doctor came in and he said "You'll be starting in a few weeks and we're going to give you twenty doses following on; five times a week." 

Describes radiotherapy she had for a 'hot spot' in her back that might have been caused by a cancer seed in the bone.

I was fine until this summer, which is what just above two years, and I started to feel there was something wrong, I wasn't sure what it was. It was like a little niggle it you know what I mean, like a toothache perhaps and I said I'm sure there's something wrong, although I was feeling fine, I was doing my own housework and everything. And the doctor said, "Well sometimes radiotherapy batters your bones, your ribs and things,' so he said, "We'll have a bone scan and see if that's what it is." He thought it was the radiotherapy on the bones but when I had the bone scan they pinpointed what they called a hot spot on my back and they gave in the measurements and it was exactly where I could feel something. And this was getting worse so by the time he got the results it was a pain and he said, "Well I think because they're not sure," it was what they call non-conclusive, they said it could be a fracture, an old fracture or it could be a cancer seed that had sneaked into the bone. So I had another scan, a CT scan which scans the soft parts inside your body and this pinpointed the very same spot.  So still not sure but he said, "We will give you one blast of radiotherapy."  

The latest treatment was so quick I lay down and she said "Oh I'll be back in a minute." I didn't, well I was so certain they were just measuring up I even took my glasses off while it was, but she said it was alright because I hadn't moved my back. She just came in and said "Right you're done," and I hadn't, I looked round like that and there was, I could just see a light with figures on my back but it was finished and it was so quick, so easy, so nice. I went in at 4.30 and I must've been out for 10 to 5, there was no waiting about whereas previously you could wait twenty minutes or so before you went in you know.
 

After she received the diagnosis her 'cancer nurse' explained her treatment and offered support.

My initial appointment at the hospital was October 2nd, the year 2000 and I was seventy at that time. After the ten days the appointment came and the whole family, well both my sons and myself, turned up to see the doctor. He told me at that time that I'd got, I've lost the word now.

A tumour?

That I had a tumour in my left lung and I asked, 'Was it malignant?', and he said, "Yes I'm sorry it is. We can't operate because it's very near a main artery but we can shrink it and we've already planned a course of treatment for you," which I thought was very good. He said, "When you leave my office there'll be a young lady waiting to meet you and she'll explain anything you want to know," and that's when I met my cancer nurse and she's an angel.  She made me a cup of tea and she told me that I'd got non-small cell cancer which I think is the best sort to have. She explained that I would have a course of radiotherapy which hopefully would shrink the cancer and that I had to go to our local hospital, not the same one, the one on the outskirts of town.  

Describes how television adverts warning people about the dangers of cigarette smoking upset her.

Do you find you can talk to other people about lung cancer, neighbours and friends as well as family?

Well we talk about, 'How are you today?' that sort of thing but you don't go round, people avoid the subject, people that, well I had one very good friend just kept away, never saw her once I told her.

Why do you think that is?

I think people are afraid of it. And people in our lung cancer group have said that they've had friends who've crossed the road rather than speak to them.

Why do you think they're afraid?

I don't know it's always been a sort of taboo subject hasn't it?  Unless you know somebody or you've got somebody in your family with it you don't really bother much about it. I hate those adverts that come on the television when they finish it by saying two weeks after this she died. And one of them said when you've got lung cancer you drowned. And I said to the nurse, I was really offended by this, well by all of them. I know they're to stop people smoking but they're not pleasant to watch when you've got lung cancer. And the nurse told me that you don't drown. And then we did ask what really happens to you and she said, 'Well the cancer grows bigger and gradually takes over your body and you get weaker and that's it.' So it's not a death by drowning.