Recently I had a wonderful opportunity to interview Alison Creed. Alison has a background in medicine and the arts and unique personal insider experience of the following health conditions:
Cancer, osteoarthritis and hip replacements
I don’t define myself by that one episode of illness. I’m aware meeting people who were being treated that they could see this was going to dominate their future, beyond their recovery. I have just reached over 5 years since my recovery, which is supposed to be some sort of milestone. With different cancers you get into different statistics about chances of survival.
I am aware things can happen just out of the blue. At the age of 21 I was in a car with my parents going to see my brother. We were in a very bad car accident, from which my parents ultimately both died. So I’m aware, things happen, that’s my attitude. And cancer is just one thing that can happen. You have to deal with things as they come along. Life goes on.
I think some people have a lot of luck and some a lot of misfortune. This feeds into life - how people approach things. I think there are people who are born optimists; I believe in nature not just nurture, but I don’t think it’s a static thing.
There have been debates recently around positive thinking.
Going for treatment for cancer, I was really sick, nauseated and sick. I know if I had a recurrence, I would want to be able to say no, I don’t want to go on with treatment. It’s important for people to talk about death and dying. The modern concept of a good death is like the ‘think positive’, like you can control everything - but you can’t. Things happen out of the blue.
Cancer wasn’t spoken about at all; it’s changed; it’s much easier to talk about it now.
I’ve had my two more recent episodes of what people may call ill health - episodes with osteoarthritis which led to hip replacements. This is speculation, but do people focus so much on cancer as it happens throughout adulthood? whereas people have a concept of age appropriate ill health...(like arthritis) Now you can hope that a hip replacement may last you up to 20 years or more.
The genetics of it: my grandmother died when I was three of breast cancer, and my sister had it when she was 38. There are different sorts, we have no idea what sort my grandmother had, and my sister and mine were different, but the geneticist suggests that our daughters from their mid 30s onwards, do have mammograms regularly.
When you have been in medicine, you can think of umpteen things that are worse.
Cancer, I was told it takes a year out of your life for the cancer and the treatment thereof, I would say that’s absolutely accurate. People’s approach to things differs; with radiotherapy, some see it as causing them lots of difficulties. For me it was a doddle – it’s just how your body reacts to things.
I would say I didn’t have any pain, the only thing was being sick. The thing that people fear, which causes the dread about it, is the fear of pain. In particular the bone secondaries create a tremendous lot of pain. People fear not being able to cope with it and unfortunately have seen relatives go through this and not have their pain controlled adequately. For some people it’s their own pain of losing their relatives, or seeing them in distress, that’s projected onto the patient. With the hospice movement, people ought not to be in pain. It can be controlled, unfortunately there aren’t enough people skilled enough in pain control, so it’s a legitimate fear. Certain cancers tend to have certain types of secondaries, early diagnosis is very important. Certain cancers, such as melanomas though, pretty much as soon as they are spotted, they have invaded.
The whole language is loaded. Its interesting in obituaries they talk of battles, sometimes I think its not what the patient might have felt, sometimes it’s the relatives’ battle with their own pain, what they’ve seen of suffering or preparing for loss.
(Lois: “I understand that for a lot of women, the loss of a breast, can be worse than the cancer itself”)
The alteration of body image, a physical removal of parts of your body, or with Chemo, the loss of hair. For myself I wondered how I would approach it, I had extremely long hair, it was part of my body image - so I prepared myself by having it cut short. It was a practical thing too, as to have great long strands of it falling out is highly inconvenient. As for the mastectomy business, I have never gone along with this increasing single focus on the breast in western society as sexual rather than also functional, as mammary organs. As it was, I didn’t have to have a mastectomy, I had a surgeon who was very concerned about the aesthetics thereof, but to me it didn’t matter at all. There is the aspect of your partner’s approach to it, you can’t divorce that from it. I didn’t find the hair loss difficult, and the short hairstyle I’ve kept afterwards, people said it took 10 years off me!
There are a whole lot of support networks if you wish to access them, I have never used them due to my own attitude to ill health, I don’t see it as a dominant thing in my life.
It’s much easier to have the cancer yourself, than to see someone else with it.
It’s interesting the part faith might play in peoples approach to it, I regard myself as an atheist. When I was being treated for cancer, people in the village would say, ‘I’ll pray for you’ and that’s a nice expression from some people, its giving a sort of gift in their terms.
With cancer, you see people alter in front of your eyes, weight loss and so on.
I had a useful tip from another patient, pins and needles in your feet - a side effect that you might keep after recovery. I have numbness in my toes, but how important is that? There are practical tips, but I know from the caring profession, you don’t tell everything as then people will feel it, whereas before perhaps they wouldn’t - a placebo effect, but the other way round.
I was very lucky being treated at Christies- who have the expertise. I had an oncologist, who was a fantastic researcher, but who had zero bedside manner. In terms of support there were two breast cancer nurses and they were fantastic. But I’m not backward in accessing what’s there, and would go out and look for it.
I was a classic case of being picked up by routine mammogram. When I got the letter for a recall - I knew and found it straight away.
Interview between Lois Blackburn and Alison Creed Feb 2010
