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How cuppa can help fight cancer

Carmel Thomason
14/10/2008

IT'S just over a year since Joan Swift, then Joan Crosland, was busy preparing for her summer wedding and trying not to think about the next big date in her calendar.

For the day after returning from honeymoon, Joan had a double mastectomy - the first of several ops to fight a rare genetic condition that claimed the lives of her mother and brother at a young age.

The 30-year-old from Ashton under Lyne suffers from Li-Fraumeni syndrome, a hereditary condition which means she has an increased risk of cancer.

Fewer than 400 families worldwide are affected by the syndrome, caused by a defective gene which means almost every part of the body may be at risk of cancer and 70 per cent of women with it will go on to develop breast cancer.

Joan's mother Kathleen died at 28 and her brother, David, died of leukaemia when he was only two.

As a toddler, Joan fought off an adrenal tumour, but two months before her wedding the cancer returned, this time in her breast.

"I've been through every single emotion you can think of," says Joan. "I've had my dark days and I've had my good days. I'm adjusting to a new kind of normal. I'm kind of looking at it like diabetes or something like that - cancer a controllable disease not a death sentence."

Joan talks about her condition in a measured and practical way. Day-to-day niggles pale into insignificance as she tells how, the month following her mastectomy, she was diagnosed with secondary bone cancer.

"I had been limping about, but because of the breast cancer diagnosis and my wedding I put it to the back of my head," she remembers. "I thought I'd trapped a nerve but a scan revealed it was a big tumour.

"I had surgery to remove it in the October so my right hip and most of right thigh bone is now a metal implant. I was in a wheelchair for about three months. I'm walking again now but, because the muscles are in a slightly different place, I have to use a stick. It means that little things I used to take for granted, like going upstairs on a bus, I can't do now.

"I've also had to realise it's going to take me twice as long to get to places."

However, Joan is also keen to highlight the important emotional support she has received from family, friends, medical staff and online charity forums like breastcancercare.org.uk.

"It sounds really clichéd to say that positive thinking works but it does - it brings you out of your dark days.

"When I was first diagnosed I became very introverted and didn't want to speak to anybody. I wanted to brood in self pity, but thankfully people wouldn't let me. Friends would just turn up at my house, make a brew and have a chat. For me it's about having that network of friends who, even if I'm feeling morbid, will come round and say, `Right we're going out,' just go for a drive or something.

"It's important to see other people and get involved in their lives. It's about keeping your eyes open, connecting with other people and recognising that they have problems too."

Now Joan is the one getting other people involved, by organising a tea party at her local pub, Oliver's Bar on Bow Street, to raise money for Breast Cancer Care.

"From the day I got diagnosed the women on the Breastcancercare.org.uk forum have been amazing," she says. "They are women who are going through the same things. It's a lot easier talking to someone who has been there and asked the same questions as you have.

"It's a brilliant source of support to know as well that there are lots of young women going through the same experiences.

"I've got more reconstructive surgery to have on my breasts, but I've just had my six month scan and it looks like the drugs are working and I don't need chemo or radiotherapy yet.

"It's good to know there is help out there and, from my own experience, I know when this hormone therapy stops there are so many clinical trials going on at the moment that there will be another option."

Joan's Ladies Tea Party is at Oliver's Bar, Ashton-under- Lyne on Sunday October 26 from 4pm-10pm. For a free brew bring your own tea pot and cup. Donations and raffle prizes welcome.