CANCER is always with us in some shape or form – in your family, amongst your friends or in yourself. Despite advances in both detection and treatment, the numbers are still frightening.
Of course, it's wise to check any concerns. Keep on at your doctor until you get an appointment and a referral if necessary, and keep ringing to ask where you are in the appointment queue. These days everyone is under pressure and it's important not to be ignored – people make promises with the best of intentions and time goes by and their list of phone calls gets longer, so it's quite acceptable to give them a little nudge.
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I FACED THIS IN 2000
I had my own 'millennium experience''... Yet even after so many years I still worry, just as Jean the breast care nurse at the City Hospital predicted: "If you get a pain in your ear lug you'll think it's cancer – even though it won't be."
The wait for results is awful; sometimes it's not good news and the journey begins. My story was a regular mammogram at Linenhall Street in Belfast.
I had stopped on the way out to speak to a friend, when all of a sudden the medical staff caught up with me and ushered me behind the scenes for a more detailed examination.
And so began an experience I will never forget; one which for me was successful and which I've been able to talk through with other women and their families experiencing the same shock of diagnosis.
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I was fortunate. Not everyone is, as I know only too well. Some choose to keep the news private; I didn't. The world and his wife knew and I found that helpful – my friends were so considerate and kind after my mastectomy. The house was filled with flowers – some even had to go in the bath to be kept fresh.
It must be difficult to face such a diagnosis on your own and that's why I like people to ask me about my experience.
Now, 23-and-a-half years later I can give what assurance I can and I give three hearty cheers to Pamela Ballantine for her positive and joyous approach.
As with any severe illness it's the family I feel for most. You are the patient in the centre of the action – not the most important actor in what's playing out, essentially you're there because you have to be but it's the surgeon and the oncologist and their staff who are centre-stage. Friends and relations are the audience sitting waiting for the story to unfold, no right to interrupt with questions, just praying the ending is a happy one.
So, you might lose your hair, but a wig isn't the end of the world. The first time I wore my funky hair piece my husband told me I looked like Rod Stewart and we laughed.
I feared it would get hooked on someone passing behind me when I was out so I sat with my back to the wall. However, the day a bus whizzed past me and my top knot swung into action was ghastly until a lovely young man chased it up the street and with a delightful smile replaced on my head.
Breast cancer seems to get all the publicity. However, there are so many types of this pesky disease that does not respect age or gender and this month and every other month my thoughts go out to those in the middle of their cancer experience.
MEMORIES
Ulster Television opened its door to the public 64 years ago on Halloween afternoon and the fun and games began. A small studio typically hosting lambs in one corner, ballet dancers in another and an actor doing a commercial for sherry in the third, the rest of the space taken up by three cameras, a mic on a long pole, a news desk, two presenters and a floor manager conducting the show. And everything was live.
No-one was prepared for the memorable evening when Ivor Mills was interviewing a highly respected businessman about the introduction of dictaphones.
He had brought his attractive secretary with him to give her opinion on this recording device.
"Seems like a revolutionary time-saving device," observed Ivor. "But," he continued, turning to the secretary, "it's not good news for you – it makes you almost redundant."
All eyes turned to the secretary for her reaction.
She stood up and walked regally across to Ivor. Everyone holds their breath; is she going to attack him in front of the audience at home?
No – with a sweet smile she sits on his knee, takes his handsome face in her hands and kisses him long and hard on his lips.
No-one moves, mesmerised at the scene. She breaks away and turns to the camera, winks, and announces: "A dictaphone can't do that."
