
Other long-term physical effects
- Age at interview:
- 55
- Sex:
- Male
- Age at diagnosis:
- 41
- Background:
- Les is a White married father of two grown up children. He is a full time chemical process technician at a large chemical manufacturer.
- Age at interview:
- 75
- Sex:
- Male
- Age at diagnosis:
- 69
- Background:
- Publican (retired), married, no children.
I do find from time to time that I have, even though now that they've told me that I'm in a reasonable shape and things are clear as far as the cancer is concerned, I do occasionally cough up some black sediment from the lung. And I have spoken to the oncologist about this and what he has said was due to the radical radiotherapy there are very small blood vessels that attempt to regrow and what happens they don't regrow, they shrivel, and of course they break away and that's the little black pieces that come up. It's just like little bits of black but it isn't anything to worry about at the moment.
- Age at interview:
- 43
- Sex:
- Male
- Age at diagnosis:
- 35
- Background:
- Ian became an occupational therapist after retiring from the police. He is married and has two children aged 16 & 14. Ethnic Background: White Welsh.
- Age at interview:
- 56
- Sex:
- Male
- Age at diagnosis:
- 42
- Background:
- Joiner (retired), married, 3 children.
- Age at interview:
- 35
- Sex:
- Male
- Age at diagnosis:
- 30
- Background:
- Separated, 1 child.
- Age at interview:
- 60
- Sex:
- Male
- Age at diagnosis:
- 53
- Background:
- Alan retired in 2001, and is divorced with a son and two daughters. Ethnic Background: White British.
- Age at interview:
- 69
- Sex:
- Female
- Age at diagnosis:
- 53
- Background:
- Marie is a housewife. She is married with two adult children. Ethnic Background: White British.
Yes, basically just keeping to a very, very strict diet. Eating small amounts, lots of vegetables and fruit. I just changed my eating habits. In fact I found now that I went out to a restaurant the other day to celebrate my white count coming down and they did a jacket potato but they brought me chips and I found I couldn’t eat them. It’s so long that I’ve eaten that kind of rubbish that I just couldn’t eat them. So my lifestyle changed completely.
A few people also experienced unexpected and rare complications from their cancer treatment. A woman with ovarian cancer who needed a tube inserting into her windpipe in an emergency had one of her vocal cords damaged by the procedure. She also needed a separate operation to clear a bowel blockage. A woman who had surgery to remove a colorectal cancer later needed several more operations on her abdomen to deal with a haemorrhage, an abscess and hernias. A woman who had radiotherapy for cervical cancer needed an operation six years later to drain fluid that had built up in her uterus.
Last reviewed October 2018.
