But I say, the thing that did annoy me was feeling alone. I mean, 40-odd thousand women, they’ve got support groups. Who do I go to? Nobody. You sit and ponder yourself.

Were you offered any support groups or networks?

Well, only this one man who’d been in touch with me, or I presume that’s the only other man in [area], I don’t know.

But you had asked to meet someone else, no-one offered you the chance?

Well, I knew they say this man in [city], and this was quite a long time after. Butit was, it was very worthwhile, going to [town] and having a couple of pints and having a word with him. It was very, very worthwhile.

What sort of things did you want to know? Did you just want to share your experience or

Share me experience and how you felt and how long it’d be before you felt reasonable again. He’d beenI think he said it was three or four years since he’d had his mastectomy, and he said oh, I’m just about getting over it no. I thought three years to go. But I still go to the hospital.

When you werefirst got your diagnosis, who did you tell?

Everybody I come into contact with. Spread the word that men can get it.

And what was the reaction of other people?

Other women listened with interest. Men just didn’t want to know. Oh, that’s a woman’s disease, men don’t get that

Right. Were there any men that were interested?

Never found one except this man from [city].

So
I’ve never found one.

You’ve never had another man apart from that man you met who’d had breast cancer himself, you’ve never had a positive experience of telling someone I’ve had breast cance and they’ve been interested, like a man?

Not really, not really.

No.

When you tell people they say o and that was the end of it. Whether they thought about it when they got home, I don’t know.

How did that make you feel?

Very alone. Very alone.

Whowas there anyone that you didn’t tell?

No, I don’t think there was. Everybody I come into contact with. Just to spread the word, men can get breast cancer.

Andin Fiji, I mean, it’s nice and warm and there are nice pools. I wouldn’t take me shirt, I don’t take me shirt off anyway, being fair-skinned, I get burnt very easily. But I wouldn’t go in the pool. My wife swims now, although she’s a bit older than I am, she swims twice a week. She said oh, come with me, good exercise I’m like this, I don’t know whether I want to g. Sometimes I want to go swimming, but I don’t want to walk about with nothing on. I’m self-conscious about it. I’ll have to finish, I think we shall have to make a go, cos I go to the gym now once a week. My wife comes to the gym and she goes swimming twice a week, and she says oh, come swimming with me, that’s the best exercise out But I haven’t got round to it yet. Yes, I am self-conscious about it.

Has anyone ever seen it, the scar, apart from medical staff and your wife?

No, I don’t think they have. don’t think they have.

What do you think other people’s reactions are going to be?

What have you been up to? I don’t know. Perhaps it’sperhaps I think entirely different I suppose if it was a woman had been there, she’d know what it was. But when he said there’d be no scar, it’ll just be a fold there’ll be no scar, but it is a scar about that long [mutters] here down underneath, it’s all wrinkly all along it. Because of this infection, I think I had but that didn’t cause me any problem. didn’t cause me any problem having a shower or anything, just the problem of exposing your body. I think I ought to go, I’m sure I ought to go, but I can’tget to it yet.

That must have been very tiring, going backwards and forwards.

It was, but then when you do your chemo, you have the chemo in your hand but the day before you’re having the chemo you have to get a blood test, go back to the hospital, well, the hospitals can have it, up at the hospital and have a blood test, they stick it in the vacuum chute and schtoom it’s in the laboratory, to make up whatever mixture they think I ought to have. That was another problem, another tiring problem. Alright, they had, they have to make each dose to suit the person that day, but I’ve been at the hospital waiting my turn. I got there just before time, I’d been waiting three or four hours for this stuff to come from the lab, and it’sain’t spoke to anybody that’s had it but it ain’t nice at all. Like a milk bottle And stick it in andabout five or six sorts of bottle, a little one about this big and stick it in and they said that’ll make your bum itch, and it did.

Did it?

I put it in here and within seconds, my bum itched. But only for a couple of minutes and it had gone. I said, Phew, that’s quick, it’s got to go from here all up there, round here, down ther.

So throughout all of this, the surgery, the chemo and the radiotherapy, it was just your wife that you were really getting support from?

Yes.

There was no-one else?

Wellno, I don’t think there was a lot of support anyway. I saw the breast care nurse once or twice but I think that was more or less just seeing how I am. The only other thing, I think, I had aromatherapy The only other thing, I think, I had aromatherapy for six weeks every day for six weeks at the hospital, and that was paid for by Marks and Spencers.

Oh, lovely! How did you get that?

Pardon?

How did you get that?

The hospital just wrote to me, would you like six weeks of aromatherapy? Yes please! I said well, it can’t do any harm, can it? Went to the hospital and this girl told me Marks and Sparks were paying for it. Whether it still continues or not, I don’t know. I had my six weeks and that was that.

Good. And when was that? Was that while you were getting the chemotherapy as well or

No, no that was a couple of years later.