Page 135 - She's One Crazy Lady!

was, relieved it was all over and hearing from Mrs Shrotri that she “ had had a good look inside the area and there was no cancer left. “I
have little hands that can get in places.” she said. I was moved to a four-bedded bay and soon got to know new bed friends. Thoughts of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and everything else that went with it, were way in the distance, but I did hang on to what was said about breast reconstruction. Mr Stewart told me that down the line, when treatment had ended, I could have a new breast reconstructed out of my own flesh. I knew nothing about breast reconstruction, of course, but the suggestion of having a new boob in the future sounded very interesting.
People asked what kind of cancer I had. I didn’t really know, as back in 2001, patients didn’t get copies of the notes. Your notes were simply added to your file that only medical personnel had access to. It was only when I was writing about this that I had to find out exactly what type of cancer I had and was very impressed when I asked in my doctor’s reception if there was any way I could find out and did my records go back that far, for this was twenty-two years later. I gave the receptionist a few details and ‘voila!’ – within seconds he kindly printed out the letter that Mrs Shrotri had written to Dr Lawrence.
“Miss Hooper underwent a left sided local excision and axillary node sampling on 3.8.01. During surgery she was found to have another suspicious lump about 2cm medial to the palpable lump. This was also excised at the same time. One lump was 32mm in diameter and the second lump was 20mm in diameter. Both these cancers are Grade 2 invasive ductal carcinomas with intermediate grade DCIS. 7 out of the 11 lymph nodes removed from the axilla were positive. One of the margins of excision was found to be close. She therefore needs a complete mastectomy in view of the fact that the cancer is multifocal and that the margins are close. She will also need axillary clearance at the same time.”
Today, of course, there are far more varied and personalised treatment regimes that can be given to patients as there have been so many advances in procedures and in finding new and effective drugs for the different types of breast cancer that have since been identified, with survival rates slowly improving.
Mentally, I was coping OK although the ever-present upsetting feeling that I wouldn’t be at school on the first day of the new school year was there. I wondered what everyone would be doing, wondered how they were and wondered who my replacement would be. Physically I felt well too. The drainage was behaving itself and I was checked on regularly throughout each day by the nurses who I had got to know well. A visit from my Auntie Win, who had travelled from Northumberland, really helped to cheer me up as did a visit from Des and his wife, just back from Canada, Des presenting me with a model of a totem pole and Anne saying I was honoured that he came: “Des does not do hospitals!” Mum and Dad came to see me too, as did so many members of my family and friends. It was quite a fiasco with Mum and
Mentally, I was coping OK although the ever-present upsetting feeling that I wouldn’t be at school on the first day of the new school year was there.
I wondered what everyone would be doing. ”
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