No I have found that males just say, oh yes, and change the conversation. They’re either not interested or they don’t want to know. I think they’re not interested. Females are entirely different as soon as they hear about it, they’re almost invariably horrified and interested as well too, and supportive.

Did they ask you more questions than men did?

Oh yes the men didn’t want to, most of them didn’t want to know.

Right how did that make you feel?

A bit annoyed. As I say, I’m trying to get over to the males to be careful of these things but they’ve got it in their minds now, so I would imagine that if they do have a problem there, they’ll think back on the conversation and do something about it.

What sort of questions did the women have?

Well, one wanted to feel my seroma, she’s a nurse and she wanted to feel it she was fascinated by it. I know one or two nurses, and they’re all fascinated by this sort of thing. They just asked me about the side effects of tamoxifen and, you know, the radiotherapy and all that sort of thing.

Right, so they like the gory details, did they?

Yeah, uh huh yeah, because they could very easily have the same problem at some point.

Do you think that’s why they were asking, because they could identify that something

Oh yes they could yeah. Yes. It always shocks them when I tell them about that.

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And how does that make you feel, when they’re asking you these questions?

I’m interested, I’m interested in lots of things.

So are you quite pleased, then, that they take an interest and they’re willing to sort of talk about things?

Yes, uh huh yeah, yes. And some people, when I’m telling, they suddenly disclose that they’ve had cancer of some sort or other, which they normally wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t approached the subject.

Right so this is people that you’ve known for a while, that you didn’t realise they had been going through cancer at some point?

Yeah.

Why do you think they hadn’t disclosed that?

They probably wanted to keep it to themselves until I triggered it off, and they said, Oh, I’ve had that problem. Not male breast cancer, various other types of cancer.

Is this men and women?

Men and women, yeah.

I think you being so open about having breast cancer is a great thing because, as you says, it starts conversation and

Mm hmm, awareness.

Uh huh, awareness about it. Do you ever not tell people?

No, well there’s one or two people I know perfectly well, if I told them that, they’d probably laugh, you know. There’s some nasty people in the world, as you may know? I don’t tell them. Obviously I keep them at bay.

Do you think they would make jokes because you’re a man with breast cancer?

Yeah. They would, but that’s life. There’s some nasty people, as I say.

Is that men and women like that?

No, no just men, I would imagine.

And why do you think they’re like that?

Because they’re unpleasant people and they’re always trying to be nasty, and that’s one good way of being nasty. But I haven’t had anybody being nasty to me so far.

Ok so there are some people, then, that you’ve chosen not to tell?

Em Yes. I would say yes, uh huh.

Right. Are these men that make jokes, I mean, you’re saying they’re just very unpleasant people, but do you think they’d want to make jokes because you’re a man? You know, they would try and pull you down, take your self esteem away?

Mm hmm.

Right.

So we just don’t bother about them at all.

Did you have a mammogram as a test?

Yes, and it was rather – it wasn’t painful, but I can imagine, if I’d been a female, it wouldn’t be very nice at all. I know some of my friends who say it’s not the nicest of things to happen to them.

Yeah. Can you remember all the tests they did? So they did a scan – I take it
Ultrasound one, yes.

And that’s the one where you could see it was
Could see all the blood beginning to form its own little blood supply. That was frightening.

Right. And then they did a mammogram as well?

Did a mammogram too.

Can you just explain what they did?

Well, it’s two metal plates – I think it’s an x-ray, and they try and squeeze the breast quite hard, and then it takes an x-ray of the breast, plus the lump itself, as well too, and then they can check to see if it’s cancerous. So it’s just one of the checks that they did to make sure it was a cancerous problem.

And they did a biopsy as well?

They did a biopsy as well, too.

Can you remember – was it just once in with a needle, or how did they do it?

They gave me a little injection, first, to freeze it, and then they used their little clipper and little thing to get samples of it, and I never felt a thing of that. Although I know one friend who said she was in agony with it, but something happened there – I don’t know what. Maybe she didn’t get the injection for some reason, I don’t know.

Right – and is that all the tests you had?

That’s all the tests I had.

How do the crystals make you better?

These crystals? They make me feel better. Cost me a thousand pounds, the big one, which didn’t make me feel too good when I was handing the cash over – but I find that they’re extraordinary things. they’re beautiful – one of nature’s beautiful creations.

But do you choose?

Special type of crystals?

Uh huh.

I’ve got a special type of crystal I put around my bed to stop these unhealthy energies coming in. it’s just an ordinary quartzite crystal with faceted at the sides, and I discovered the best thing to do is look up my internet site – that gives you all my information about how earth energies work, how standing stones work and about demons and sort of things as well.

So is this something you’ve always been interested in, or since the breast cancer?

No, I’ve been interested in this for forty years. There was a program on Tomorrow’s World about forty years ago in how to use divining rods – a very scientific program. And I thought, you know. Lick a typical little [name of city], I thought, Divining rods don’t work And I tried it at a standing stone, to my absolute horror, discovered I could pick up the energy from standing stones, which are actually placed above underground streams, and the energy goes up into the standing stone, which acts like, what do you call it, a prism, and then transmits the energy across to a burial ground – and you can very easily follow these sort of things.

Complementary therapies – I do have a crystals therapy set, which you can diagnose a person using this. This is [name of person] work again. it’s a sort of signal generator, which transmits energy into a crystal – you hold the crystals in your hand, and your whole body radiates at that specific frequency – and you can use a sound meter to diagnose various levels of ill health in your body, and you can also use it as treatment – you can put it on your body, which I did, around the hips, to stimulate the white blood cells – because the radiotherapy reduces the white blood cells, as far as I know, and you can use it, of course, on the wound as well too. I’m not entirely sure if it works or not, but it’s quite a fascinating thing – but you’ve got to try everything when you have a problem with ill health.

Did you feel, because you were doing that, though it helped you may be psychologically, that you were winning?

Oh yes, big psychological help, being able to do these things.

It sounds very much that you use conventional medicines as well – you weren’t dismissing anything.

Mm hmm.

Do you want to say anything about the two of them and how you feel they interact with each other?

they’re completely complementary. I wouldn’t advise anyone to go completely down the complementary road and ignore the radiotherapy, chemotherapy and so on – that’s not a good idea at all.

When you went to the hospital, did the nurse ever offer you a chance to go to any support groups?

No, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t have went to a support group, anyway – I don’t think I need support.

Why not?

Because I’m strong enough to do it on my own.

You don’t think sharing ideas or symptoms?

Yes, but I have to share ideas and symptoms with any males, and there’s very few of them around.

So if she said, I’ve got a male support group

Mm, yes.

Would you have been interested in going to that?

I probably would have went to see that.

What do you think the differences would be between a women’s group and a men’s group?

Women, it’s much more intense – it’s a tremendous problem for a female, having breast problems. For a male, it doesn’t bother me at all, not in the slightest – not interested.

Do you think you’d have felt you were intruding a wee bit?

To females? Yeah, I would probably feel I was intruding a little bit. I would probably, if I was in a female group, they probably wouldn’t be the same. I would probably suppress their dialogue.

Because, I suppose you’ve had breast cancer, just like they’ve had breast cancer.

Yeah, but my breasts don’t mean anything to me at all.

They don’t?

No, nothing at all.

It first started, oddly enough, about fifty years ago I was twenty years old at the time, and I noticed I had a lump under my left nipple. I squeezed it and got some blood and puss out but fifty years ago, nobody ever thought about male breast cancer. So I never thought any more about it. It hardened into a small lump, just behind the nipple, and it stayed like that for about forty odd years as far as I can remember. And then, about five or six years ago, I’m not quite sure how long ago, it grew again, which I became a little bit concerned about but it stopped growing. And I thought, well after forty-odd years, if that’s as much as it’ll do, it’s not worth bothering about. So just about eight months ago, it grew again overnight, and that’s when I got really worried. And I went down to the doctors the following day and I got an appointment the following day. I was admitted to hospital about ten days later very quickly. They had an emergency cancellation, and I got that instead, and I had a mastectomy, which was completely painless no bother at all. Occasional, slight twinge, but over the entire period of time, I haven’t felt pain at all there’s no problem with the pain or anything like that. Of course, I had the seroma which meant it grew up with fluid quite a lot of it, actually a bit of a nuisance but no problem at all. I went in and got it drained. So that’s basically about as much of the story. The thing I want to get over is if you’ve, any male or female has a lump on their breast, go down, immediately, to the doctor otherwise, if you delay it, of course, the cancer can spread.

So when you first noticed the problem when you were twenty, did you see a doctor then?

No.

No, why?

Being a typical male from [name of city], don’t go to doctors. Not a good idea.

Why?

Just in case I have something, a problem like cancer, like that no, you’ve really ought to be sensible about these things and go to the doctors. Females are much more open and aware of these things males aren’t, and they’re fairly sensitive about going to the doctors, or even believing that they’re ill.

What was it that changed overnight about it?

It just grew in size from about one centimetre to about two centimetres.

Right was it painful?

It wasn’t in the least bit painful.

No, and there was no discharge from the nipple or anything?

No discharge no blood, no discharge.

So it was just the fact that it got bigger?

Got bigger, yes.

How old were you the second time the lump came up?

I’d be about sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-six, I think. My oncologist said it’s not possible that a lump can grow three times. The Macmillan nurse thought it might have been three separate lumps but it wasn’t. I swear, it was just the one lump from fifty years ago, getting bigger a second time, and then finally getting bigger a third time. Whether it was cancerous the second time and it was slow, I don’t know. Or maybe it was even cancerous the first time who knows, who knows?

So why didn’t you go to your GP when it grew the second time, then?

I waited about a week and it stopped, and I thought that’s eh, if that’s all it can do in fifty years, that’s fine.

Ok so do you think it was more the rapidity of how much it grew overnight that shocked you into going?

Overnight. Yes, that’s what, eventually, very quickly, actually, made me think I have to go to the doctor and get this sorted out.