Sandra was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003. She received surgery, radiotherapy and hormone treatment. She thinks that the care she got before and during her cancer treatment was good, but there was a lack of after care. When she went for her first post operation checkup she wasn’t seen by the same surgeon who did her operation, so the consultant wasn’t familiar with her case. The biggest sources of support were her husband and her friends She thought about support groups but didn’t feel they were suitable. She didn’t want to see people who were having relapses.

Sandra experienced lots of negative side effects from the tamoxifen treatment she received following surgery. She had mood swings, constant hot flushes and weight gain on the tamoxifen, which also kick started the menopause. A friend of hers recommended Nolvadex D as an alternative with fewer side effects, and her doctor switched her to that from tamoxifen. Her consultant took her off the Nolvadex D five years post diagnosis, but she felt worried coming off the treatment as it was supposed to be cancer preventing.

Since having cancer, Sandra sees life differently. For instance, little things that used to be important are no longer important to her. She decided to retire because she felt that there was more to life than work. However, she felt these changes later on, many years after she was diagnosed. She thinks that she was in denial when she was initially told she had cancer, going through all of the motions of attending treatment.

Sandra still worries about cancer recurring. She had some bleeds last year and was referred back to her cancer consultant from about five years ago, and was sure that she had cervical cancer. Thankfully everything was clear.

She doesn’t like the term cancer survivor, and thinks that it is misleading to tell people to fight cancer’. People who die from cancer don’t die just because they didn’t fight’ hard enough; it is just because they had an incurable disease. Her message to other people is to just keep living your life, and to go for it after living past a cancer diagnosis.