Diana Dors and why I had the Angelina op in 1984
AngelinA Jolie has had her ovaries, fallopian tubes and breasts removed so that she can’t develop cancer in them (Mail). i had a very similar operation in 1984, just before i was 40. i was living in the U.S., and after examining my stomach for a non-related problem, the young female surgeon, who was aged just 27, suggested i have a radical hysterectomy. Apart from taking out the womb and cervix, she asked me what else i would like her to remove. She told me to go away for a couple of days and return with ‘my list’. on the local news the next night was a report that film star Diana Dors had just died of ovarian cancer; it was such a shock and a waste. These days she would have had a good chance of being saved. it might at least have been diagnosed earlier and she might have had longer with her family. There was my answer to give to the surgeon. i went back and suggested that she remove everything possible in one go. My mother had had each of these organs removed one at a time, in separate operations, when my younger brother and i were little children. My children were teenagers, able to cope without my attention, and the list i gave included cervix, both ovaries, womb and fallopian tubes, but not the breasts as Angelina’s had. That might have been many separate operations. The surgeon agreed with my list, and i had a radical hysterectomy two weeks later, with a stay in hospital of just four days. Five days after coming out of hospital, i was on the beach in a bikini, and i was riding my bicycle just ten days after that (on the flat, of course — i’m not completely mad). The surgeon gave me her home phone number in case i had any problems out of daytime hours, but i never had to call her. i don’t imagine i would have had such one-to-one attention in the UK, but the main difference was getting the operation done more or less immediately and choosing which organs i was to have removed. eight weeks after the operation i flew home to england to take my son to his school and carried a heavy case. Three weeks later i flew back to the U.S., again carrying my own suitcase.
Mrs SYLVIA HARVEY, South Molton, Devon.