Interview OV30
Age at interview: 48
Age at diagnosis: 46
Brief Outline: Ovarian cancer diagnosed in 2002 following abdominal bloating and bleeding. Treated by surgical removal of ovaries and womb, and colostomy, followed by chemotherapy.
Background: Unemployed community worker, widowed, one adult child.
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Couldn't believe her diagnosis was real.
Couldn't believe her diagnosis was real.
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Felt less of a woman because her surgery left her with a colostomy.
Felt less of a woman because her surgery left her with a colostomy.
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I pray God that it will never be permanent, because it's not a good thing for a lady because every day you bath, when you change, you cannot even, you know, I feel that I'm half a woman, you know, I don't know how to put it, I'm little bit confused because it sometimes you mess around without knowing what is happening.
Hoped to be able to return to college, to find a husband and live to see her grandchildren.
Hoped to be able to return to college, to find a husband and live to see her grandchildren.
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My future, I have dreams, I have dreams. I have dreams that the minute I finish going my treatment, things like that, I would like to go back to college and do some counselling courses, because I love people, I love young children, I love aged, I can help them, what I've gone through back in Africa and here, and I've plenty to give to people, yeah, not to lose hope.
You know I had dreams when I came to this country, that for the first time I may find somebody to love me and marry me. I had dreams, I'd say to the Lord 'the boy has grown up now, give me somebody to look after me for a change' you know what I mean? I'm not giving up.
I have cried also, because I was hoping to see, and my dreams were to see my grandchildren one day, because he's only one boy. If he had 2 or 3 children we would be big family. That's all my dreams and I pray God even up to now to let me see them.
Gained support from her Christian faith and her prayers.
Gained support from her Christian faith and her prayers.
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But now it doesn't matter, I know when God is with me and the God is with doctors, everything's possible. I'm not losing hope. I'll continue hanging on in my faith.
But through the faith things are much much better. And I'm telling you and I'll tell you again, and I'm not ashamed to say it again, I know he's able, God is able, and everything is possible with God, and I got my feelings, yeah I believe it, step by step, I believe it, because my dear, my stomach was rotten, I saw it. Even to sit here like this, it's the grace of the Lord.
Friends in the African Caribbean community advised her to pray rather than go to the hospital for...
Friends in the African Caribbean community advised her to pray rather than go to the hospital for...
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But from there I lost many people, the friends I knew they never came to see me, because the minute they were told that I had that and I had this, they thought that was the end of me. And I asked my God to spare my life for my son's sake, because I've lost my husband and it was hard bringing him up alone and him having no friends or family near him.