Margaret’s story

November 6, 2014 by mariemcw 2 Comments

Recently we met Margaret Corbett during one of our Cancer, Older People and Advocacy workshops at Macmillan’s Cancer Voices Conference. This is Margaret’s story of being an older person diagnosed with cancer:

I am over 80 and a long-retired medic. Early in January 2012 my breast cancer diagnosis was made promptly, surgery, tamoxifen and a course of radiotherapy was recommended as treatment. At the end of radiotherapy I was told to expect a follow-up appointment in Oncology. Meanwhile I was invited to a specialist nurse-led group meeting. We were given a carefully prepared and designed leaflet. Topics covered included exercise, diet, lose some weight if you can, body image, sex life, risk of lymphoedema and what to do. All very good advice but I seem not to have taken it in for months, though I was living healthily and getting considerable benefit from regular exercise and significant loss of weight.

 

The treatment seemed not nearly as much trouble as I expected, but I felt mysteriously mentally distressed, a finding that I had not anticipated and found very worrying. At my first oncology follow-up appointment I was ashamed and denied any psychological problem. I had not then discovered how common it is to have such feelings. I was given a note and asked to make an appointment for a year later and I felt somewhat reassured to have the date and time firmly assigned.

 

Much of my problem has been the idea that my treatment had been ‘easy’ because of my age. I felt left out and under treated. I now believe that this was a completely wrong concept. At my first follow-up appointment I was very concerned about my prognosis. I asked why I had not been offered any form of chemotherapy. My oncologist left the room and returned with a sheet of paper showing the result of a computerized predictive tool. He said “Well, it would only make 1% of difference and it’s not safe you know”. If only he had said (without getting any printout) “We have a guiding rule here, we run this predictive tool and if chemotherapy would make less than 3% of difference we do not offer it, between 3 and 5% difference we discuss it, and over 5% we advise a course of chemotherapy”. I hope that I would have been able to accept that and I believe it would have saved me a great many bad feelings.

 

At the end of the summer I joined a Macmillan-backed Womens’ Support Group and from them was able to access a local HOPE (How to Overcome Problems Effectively) course consisting of seven sessions similar to group therapy with exercises in various calming techniques, and also, concurrently as it turned out, some sessions of counselling. The well run HOPE course worked really well for me. I was able to understand that other people had similar reactions so that I could stop feeling so psychologically abnormal. We had shared experiences and we helped each other.

 

My counselling sessions were also very helpful as I was able to identify that I have a problem with anger. It has been most helpful to know this though I haven’t done anything further about it since.

 

I would have liked more information. It would have been very acceptable on paper but, because of my undoubted denial and psychological stress, I would have liked to be offered the information more than once – perhaps even at every follow-up appointment until I could say that I didn’t need it. I now believe that treatment is offered to older patients on a basis of performance status rather than on age. I have now had the switch from tamoxifen to exemestane that was so briefly mentioned right at the beginning and I am delighted about this. There is still no written forward plan but I am less concerned than before as I do now feel carefully managed and well looked after.

 

An offer of advocacy support as part of the follow-up at the end of radiotherapy would have been very timely, though in view of how mentally strange I felt at the time I might not have accepted it. I did not ‘feel myself’ and I can’t judge how someone else would react.

 

The oncology staff do know that the end of treatment is a difficult time for many people – ‘the Lifeboat Syndrome’. Advocacy might be just the thing, possibly offered fairly firmly.

Margaret Corbett

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