Interview 04- Ovarian cancer

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.

For more clips from this interview click here.

She left decisions about treatment for her ovarian cancer entirely to her doctor, whom she trusted from the outset.

“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.