‘If I’d waited to have a screening it could have been too late for me’
Patricia Jennings (42), lives and works in Newry where she is a college lecturer teaching young adults aged 14-18. She was diagnosed with Action Cancer on February 25, 2016, at the age of 41 when the Big Bus came to Warrenpoint and her sister alerted her to the breast screening appointments available free. She says:
Ihad no symptoms of breast cancer, but at 41, I thought I would go along with my sister as the Big Bus was so handy for me — about 20 minutes drive from work to Warrenpoint.
The appointment was quick and easy enough. It was my first mammogram, but it wasn’t nearly as painful as I had been led to believe. The staff were lovely and I was glad to have gone.
A week later, I received a letter from Action Cancer telling me that I was to attend a further appointment at Belfast City Hospital, as an anomaly had been found during my screening on the Big Bus. The nurse at the hospital did a physical exam and felt a slight lump on my right breast.
I went alone to the appointment, as I didn’t want to worry any of my family or friends until I knew what it was I was dealing with.
After a biopsy and a scan of the lump I was diagnosed with Stage 1 Grade B breast cancer. After Easter 2016 I had a lumpectomy and also had a lymph node removed to check for any further signs of cancer. Thankfully the cancer had not spread.
Early detection was important to me. I was lucky I was caught early. My attitude was, and still is, you just have to get on with it. My family and friends were a great support.
Because of early detection, I didn’t need to have chemotherapy although I did have a threeweek course of radiotherapy as treatment. Now I take Tamoxifen hormonal therapy as additional treatment following surgery, to reduce the risk of the cancer coming back and to reduce the risk of a new breast cancer developing.
Luckily, I suffered few sideeffects with the Tamoxifen and am recovering well. The diagnosis has changed me and I no longer worry about the small things in life.
Thankfully, I am now cancer-free and believe the Big Bus and my older sister’s advice saved my life. I’m now back to work and have been on a holiday to New York and Boston this summer with a group of friends to celebrate beating cancer and getting back to my old self. As a keen traveller I am planning more trips to Europe and further afield soon, including a fundraising attempt at the Camino di Santiago next summer.
The journey I made that day, just 20 minutes down the road to the Big Bus screening appointment, changed my life forever. It was the most important journey of my life.
I knew that breast screening was available in Belfast, but it’s probably not something I would have bothered to do.
It was the very fact that the Big Bus came to me, close to where I lived, that I went for an appointment.
I was 41 when my breast cancer was detected, if I had waited until the health service screening programme kicked in at 50, I’m convinced it would have been too late for me.
My message to other women aged 40-49 and 70-plus is this — go and get screened with Action Cancer. Don’t rely on self-checking your breasts, while this is important, mammograms detect things long before there is anything to feel.
Be proactive and book yourself a free mammogram, either on board the Big Bus when it’s next in your area or at Action Cancer House in Belfast.
If I hadn’t stepped on the Big Bus that day, my outcome could have been very different. Thank you Action Cancer and the Big Bus for saving my life.”
For further information, contact Action Cancer’s Communications Manager Sian Devlin, tel: 028 9080 3361/07825 266 951 or email siandevlin@actioncancer.org Northern Ireland Cancer Registry: Breast cancer incidence and mortality rates 1993-2014
Visit nhs.uk/Conditions/Cancerof-the-breast-female/Pages/ Symptoms.aspx
If I had waited for screening at 50, I’m convinced it would have been too late