Interview 14- Ovarian cancer

Age at interview: 54

Age at diagnosis: 53

Brief Outline:

Ovarian cancer diagnosed in 2002 following abdominal ache. Treated by surgical removal of ovaries and womb followed by chemotherapy.

Background:

Retired day centre social worker, married, 2 adult children.

For more clips from this interview click here.

 

 

She chose a treatment that would almost certainly lead to hair loss, which she knows would not be acceptable to some women.

 We did talk about the different chemotherapies but my husband and I had already come to a decision about that. The present, or at least the gold standard was a combination of Taxol and carboplatin. I'd found out that the Taxol causes the more severe side effects but the research that they had to hand then was that it produced slightly better results if you used the 2 in combination. Although I believe NICE have recently brought out a new report on that. But anyway, the present gold standard then was the combination of the two. 

 

Now for some women hair loss is not acceptable and they go just for the carboplatin on its own, which is, you know, fair enough. But with Taxol it is almost a certainty that you're going to lose all your hair. I'd read that a cold cap could help prevent the hair loss but I thought if my hair's just going to start thinning and look awful, I'd really rather just lose it all and have the benefit of having the Taxol as well.