Interview OV04

Age at interview: 59

Age at diagnosis: 49

Brief Outline: Ovarian cancer diagnosed in 1992 following abdominal swelling. Treated by surgical removal of ovaries and womb followed by chemotherapy.

Background: Sales Assistant; married, 4 adult children.

She trusted her doctors' judgement in making treatment decisions.

What about treatment decisions, were you involved with your doctors in deciding what the treatments should be or was it just a case of them saying 'This is what you need'?

Entirely up to them. I had no input at all into that. I don't know if I, I wouldn't have had any knowledge to be able to say 'yes' or 'no' to something and I wouldn't have had the courage to say 'no' to anything. Whatever he said to me I went along with, I trusted him implicitly. Still do. If he said to me now 'You need some chemo' I would discuss it with him and find out why, but I'd go with it, I would definitely go with it.

I don't think I personally couldn't have done it any differently, I would have to trust him a hundred percent to know what was best for me. I wouldn't, and if I didn't feel like that with him I wouldn't be able to be a patient of his, I would have found that very difficult, but straight away it was good and it worked - fortunately.

Found scans after completion of treatment nerve-racking because she feared that the cancer might...

Coped with the chemo as best I could, it was fine. And then stopped having the chemo. My GP sent me, I'm sorry the oncologist sent me for my first body scan and I was absolutely terrified. I think I was perhaps more afraid of that than anything because I knew what they were looking for, and I knew that the radiologist had been looking for cancer, or looking for something nasty when I first saw her but that was all right because I knew then that I'd got something wrong with me. 

As far as I was concerned after the chemo and the operation I was fine I hadn't got anything wrong with me, so I knew that was what they were looking for, and I did find that very, very frightening. That was fine, I sailed through that, I've had three of those and they've been fine. And that's it really. I'm here ten years later - fortunately.

Her husband used crying as a release and coped with running the home and working while she was in...

So tell me about how your husband coped, was he a good support to you?

He was great, absolutely great, after he'd finished crying, he was absolutely fine! Apparently he used to cry all the way to work and all the way home, that's how he got rid of his' not stress, is it stress? I've got no idea. I think because it all happened quickly from my being diagnosed to going into hospital, to being operated on, to coming out, I mean he had four children to feed, because I mean they're four useless children, or they were at the time!

I think between the visiting and the shopping and doing work etcetera, life just went on really. Because I hadn't been ill I didn't have any build-up to this. I think everybody was probably, when I think about it, perhaps all in a state of shock, life just went on, she'd just gone into hospital, she was going to come out, so we'll cope for ten days, and they did cope for ten days.

Being positive can be difficult at times but you need to believe that you will survive.

All the time I was always positive, I never ever thought it would kill me. I never ever thought I was going to die of it. I think sometimes that gets a bit difficult to do. You wake up some mornings and you feel grotty and you think 'oh'. But I think you read and you hear about positive thinking, and I know several people who have been positive thinking with various things and it hasn't always worked. But I think you have to be positive.

It's difficult sometimes not to waver, but try not to waver because you're the only person that can do it for you. Have all the support in the world and it's great, the support is tremendous but it's all down to you, so you have got to know that you will survive it, and you will survive it, don't ever doubt it.