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Ovarian CancerArrow
5-6 years since diagnosis
Interview OV31  

Interview OV31

Age at Interview: 44
Sex: Female
Age at Diagnosis: 38
Background: Civil servant, married, no children.
Brief outline:Ovarian cancer diagnosed in 1997 in the course of infertility treatment. Treated by surgical removal of ovaries and womb followed by chemotherapy.


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Was initially refused by an adoption agency because of her cancer but succeeded in changing the policy.

 



After, about a year after the chemotherapy, maybe not just as long as that, we decided that we would go back to the adoption route which we had tried before and obviously because we were having fertility treatment we couldn't advance. So we thought “well we'll go back to that route and see what happens”. 

The decision then to try adopting children really just came once, you know, we'd sort of come to terms and dealt with cancer and the fact that I wasn't going to die and so on just then. We thought well maybe we could think about this again, and so we went back and unfortunately when my medical information was put to the panel we were rejected.  

While I initially accepted it then maybe another year down the line I started to think “This is the only negative thing in my life, nobody else seems to have a problem with the fact that I had cancer, I don't, my husband doesn't, friends and family don't. You know I'm sort of back to normal and work and, you know, people are treating me now the same as they ever did. Why have we been turned down because I was diagnosed with cancer?”  

So we decided then that, an opportunity came when I saw an article in a local newspaper covering a similar type of story, that I would contact this journalist and let her know what happened and we went public. And after that we were contacted by our local MP who decided that this maybe wasn't very fair and contacted the particular health Trust. And we went through an appeal procedure, we met the Chief Executive and my medical history then was gone into again, and a few years down the road the decision was overturned and it was, the policy was changed that anybody diagnosed with cancer applying to adopt children in that particular area would be free to go forward five years after diagnosis.  

So I reached my five years six months ago, the medical information has gone to panel again and we've been given the go ahead to start the assessment, which that's the stage we're at the minute.  
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