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Breast ScreeningArrow
Age 40-49
Interview 35  

Interview 35

Age at Interview: 43
Background: A full-time mother and fund raiser. Married with 3 children.
Brief outline:Had first mammogram in USA at age 39. Was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and DCIS, and had treatment. Has annual mammograms in USA.


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She discusses feeling isolated as she did not know women of her own age with breast cancer.

 



I think the most frightening thing about it was that there was no, this wasn't something that happened to people my age. I didn't know anyone else who was thirty-nine or even forty-one or forty-three or anyone near my age to call up and say "Hey what's chemo like?" And will I be all right with this and am I going to die and these sort of things. Everyone I knew that I could think of that had had cancer, breast cancer especially, they died. And that was horrifying to me that I don't think I ever felt quite as alone in that.

I think also you get very struck by the feeling of, you know "I'm thirty-nine. This doesn't happen to thirty-nine year old's. Why me, why on earth, you know is this happening? Did I do something? Was it junk food I ate? Was it the aspirin I took? Was it, you know birth control?" And nobody could say what it was. Nobody. And I think that's a very frightening part of it. And I think there's also, oddly enough, a sense of embarrassment. I had the sense that I'm the only mother on the school run with cancer. You know, it was something that I felt very strongly in the beginning.
Jenni Murray - Cancer
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