Penny - Breast cancer

Age at interview: 47

Age at diagnosis: 37

Brief Outline:

Penny was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000, aged 37. She had a mastectomy, radiotherapy, tamoxifen and Arimidex. She also had her ovaries removed and has been clear of cancer for ten years.

Background:

Penny is a married training development manager. Ethnic background/nationality: White British.

For more clips from this interview click here.

The decision to have her ovaries removed was fairly straightforward because she and her partner...

 He [doctor] said my treatments would be radiotherapy and I’d be put onto tamoxifen for five years. But that’s all he could really tell me, oh but the oncologist really explained more to be about how that was all going to work. He said, but in addition to that, as an extra precaution because of it being oestrogen positive they wanted to remove my ovaries as well. So straightaway I just said, “Yeah, just do whatever.” Now I was in a fortunate position, we don’t have children but we had already made our minds up that we weren’t having any children. So to lose my ovaries wasn’t a big thing, which I appreciate it would be to many people.