The other issue was the surgeon, on giving the bad news, said’ “Now you have two options’ either a mastectomy or a wide local excision.” And he said’ “It’s your choice.”

And we went through the reasons for each.

I can’t remember very clearly at the moment but I remember I had Christmas, the whole Christmas period, to think about this. And thank goodness for e-mail. I was able to e-mail my specialists where I’d had my previous operation and said, you know, I wanted their opinion.

And again the woman surgeon said some very sensible and sound, gave me some very sound advice, which was she couldn’t say categorically which way I should go.

She said experience showed, research showed, that in fact in this particular kind of case mastectomy and wide local excision were of equal benefit.

But, once I had made the decision, not to go back on it, not to think about it. Just forget and move on. You know, make the decision. Which was very, very good advice because it’s no good thinking’ “My God, have I decided on the right thing?” And that was a lot of help.