Some people say that after they’ve had cancer it can affect things like your sex life. Did you find that?

No, I was concerned that my husband would bear it in mind but it hasn’t affected him at all. He’s quite happy. I had no sense of touch on that side. it’s, you know, it’s quite. I don’t know why I haven’t any, don’t get any, I’m not aroused if anybody would touch that side. I think, again, it’s because I’m self-conscious about that side, but no, not for very obvious reason because it doesn’t look, I don’t look deformed or anything. But no, it hasn’t impacted on my husband at all, and again, I don’t know if that’s normal, you know, that for a husband to feel differently, but he hasn’t. I think in some ways I suspect he’s just glad I’m still around.

So now that you’ve had cancer, and you’ve talked about talking to other people, do you find that you relate to people who’ve had cancer differently?

There does seem to be a camaraderie among people who’ve had cancer. We go to Ireland a lot more and one of the people we go and see over there has had it, and we always have a hug when we go over there. We’re both still her, sort of. We have a bit of a laugh about it, although he isn’t well at all. He’s quite an elderly man. The fellow down the road who’s been very ill with cancer, you have a chat because you feel you’ve been somewhere together, you know, you’ve come over the other side. And it enables, well I don’t know if it’s particularly me, but I think it makes you able to take it lightly, whereas I used to get quite wound up by people who’d come and put a very sad face on, Oh, how are you? Are you all right Grrrr! But, you know, I didn’t like that. I think it was making you feel more and more negative about what was happening to you. So I mean with my neighbour down the road I can have a joke with him, and even my husband will joke, because you can get over it, hopefully, yes. And there’s no point in being miserable about it. If you have, like the man down the road, has only got six months to live, you think, well, you don’t want people around you with glum faces all the time talking about that.

But the other side of it you don’t want people to ignore it. I had experiences of, well, people who never mentioned it. And that was creepy, you know, you’d have a whole evening out with them, and not that I wanted them to, but you think afterwards, They never once mentione. But not in, I didn’t necessarily want them to be sort of sorry for me or anything like that, but just it’s a reality wasn’t it, and this was when I was sort of still having treatment for it. But they, and to this day there’s at least one person I know who I see fairly regularly who’s never ever mentioned it, which is weird. I think it’s quite funny, but it’s, and I think you do want people to acknowledge it but not necessarily make a great big fuss about it.

So has that changed the way that you relate to people, you know, depending on how they’ve reacted around that time?

Not really. I mean it takes all different sorts, doesn’t it. I know when my mum died years ago there were people who couldn’t talk about it and didn’t know how to speak to me. And it’s actually helped me when now I meet people whose relatives have died, I know they just want you to say that I’m really sorry, and that, you know, and that’s all. Is there anything I can do But they’ll not really go into a very depressive mode of wanting to talk about all the details of it. I don’t want to do that, but I don’t want to go back through it all.

I think the trouble with cancer is it has got connotations for people, and I think it’s one of those diseases that generally people don’t think you’ll get over. it’s still there and that is always in the back of your mind that it’s there niggling away. And it’s my family, I think it has had more of an impact on than me in that sense. They still, I’m sure, think it’s still there. They don’t totally relax. It seems to come up in conversations when you least expect it. And that, I don’t find it hard but it does sort of bring it back and we can’t get over it. And I think it does shape a lot of our lives now, the fact that we’ve taken up skiing. My husband is determined to do everything in case, you know, I die. And he will often sort of talk about if I died what would happen to the money and things like that, and what he would do, and what he wouldn’t do, in a way he would never have done before. And in some ways I suppose it’s good, you know, accept that one of us will die eventually, but it’s me that’s really constantly saying, But I’m not going anywher. And I think nobody really in the family expects me to live a long life. When we talk about retirement you think, Well, will I get five years? Will I ge And I suppose it does affect my thinking but I like to think it doesn’t, and I’m determined that it isn’t going to have a long-term impact.

But I think there’s always this nagging doubt in their mind that something is happening, and if I say I’m not well you can see them looking and they can’t, the mention of cancer seems to come up fairly regularly in their conversations and my husband’s conversations when I was ill, is a sort of favourite thing, not in a negative way, I just think it’s always there in their heads now when I had cancer. it’s not that I go on about it, it’s them that will always bring it up.

And it’s also, and I didn’t realise until fairly recently, about a year or so ago, that it had left my elder daughter with the feeling that she would get breast cancer.

It was inevitable, was more or less her response one day to a question, Well, I’m going to get i, and that worries me a lot. I think she shouldn’t be thinking like that. She’s got her life ahead of her and I don’t think how to convince her really that that isn’t the case. But that worries me. That’s one of my concerns.

Can you think of any other practical issues that have arisen that could have been, something could have been provided to help you or you felt that you had to deal with alone or anything?

No, not really. No, I remember somebody said when I first got cancer, a cancer care nurse, that because I’d had the lymph nodes taken out I should really look after that arm and be conscious of it all the time. She said, You will get to the point where, you know, anybody who goes near your arm you’ll [urgh And I thought that was a bit weird at the time. I thought, No And it didn’t really happen until I got the bee sting, which was a couple of years after I’d had cancer that I actually became aware that that arm wasn’t as good as the other one and I did have to be more watchful of it.

So is that something you need to keep an eye out for or get?

Oh, yeah, yes.

Do you see someone about that?

I did but for a couple of visits after the bee sting but not now. It isn’t a problem but I am conscious, yes, I am conscious and I do think this arm perhaps isn’t as, yeah, yes I suppose that is a long-term consequence. This arm isn’t as strong as the other arm. I can’t carry a lot of heavy shopping or anything like that. It would hurt. I have to be very, but I do carry heavy shopping. They said not to but, you know, if it starts hurting I, because I’m very right handed. This hand is no good at all, so I can’t write or do anything with it, wouldn’t paint with this hand or anything. But yeah, that would be something that I would think about.

You know, if we go on holiday I wouldn’t yank a heavy case. That would be something I would do it with this hand.

And do things like the sleeve and the massages help?

The sleeve actually is brilliant. I’ve got two of them, and they did say, After a year or so come back and we’ll give you another one But I’ve never gone back. I’ve got two and I’d say only use them if the arm is aching a bit and I’m going to do something I would put it on and it does make a difference. I know it does. It then doesn’t ache.