“Don’t order your coffin yet, it’s nothing,” the radiographer told Barbe Dolan during her appointment.
It was 2002. The mum-of-three from Sydney had just returned to part-time work when she felt the large, hard lump under her arm while showering. She was raising a young family – a six-year-old daughter and two sons, 10 and 12 – and hoped it was all in her head, that is was just a cyst.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t.
“I’m quite aware of my body, and when I discovered [the lump] I thought ‘Oh, what’s that’. But then you wonder if it’s your mind playing tricks on you, [whether] this might go away. Eventually I had to take the plunge,” she told Mamamia.
“At the time I went and had an ultrasound and the radiographer said, ‘You’re fine’. At that stage, it was what I wanted to hear, so I was quite happy with her saying that. But that gave me false hope.”
The lump didn't go away, so eventually Dolan went back to the doctor. They did a biopsy and found she had breast cancer.
"I was in the same room with the same radiographer, but they were talking hush hush behind their hands; it was a completely different atmosphere and alarm bells went off then," she said.
"When it appeared it wasn't just a cyst, then I thought, maybe [the radiographer] shouldn't have said that [I would be fine]. It's great being positive but I prefer to hear the worst case-scenario.
"Mind you, [this happened] 10 years ago, and I think people are more aware now, people know more about breast cancer and how it affects people, so I don't think that would've happened today."
Undergoing her first round of treatment was a big shock for Dolan and her family. Their lives "were going swimmingly, and then everything was turned upside down."
"It was horrible, I didn't know what questions to ask. At my first oncologist appointment I was told I'd be having chemo. I thought, 'I might lose some weight, so that's good'. He then told me, 'You'll actually probably put on weight, and you're going to lose your hair, your eyebrows, your eyelashes'... But I thought, 'At least I'll have my breasts'."
And that was true for five years, until Dolan found another lump in the same breast.
This time, it was a triple-negative tumour, meaning it lacked the three most common types of receptors known to fuel the majority of breast cancers (estrogen, progesterone, and the HER-2 gene). Generally more aggressive than most, triple-negative breast cancers represent around 15 per cent of diagnoses.
She couldn't have a second course of radiation to the area, so doctors recommend Dolan (who had "always been a booby girl") have a mastectomy.
"Everybody's different - for me, I'm very vain. I've always been proud of my boobs and my hair, they're a part of 'me'," she said.
"When they said, 'You have to have a mastectomy', that was absolutely devastating. I said to my husband, 'I'm not waking up without breasts, I'm not going to do it'. I looked at my options and chose to have a reconstruction at the same time as the mastectomy. It cost a lot of money and put us in a lot of debt, but I had to do it.
"It's human nature, you don't want to be different to everyone else; you want to look the same. When I lost my hair, I chose a wig that looks exactly like my hair, so some people didn't even know. I didn't want that pity in someone's eye, I just wanted to be me."
Later Dolan had her other breast removed and reconstructed because she didn't want to live with the worry of the cancer coming back there - she wanted to take fate into her own hands. The surgery took ten hours, she had to wear a corset with drains coming out of it for weeks, but she said the pain was worth it to save her life.
Dolan now works with the National Breast Cancer Foundation as a member of their Speakers Network to raise awareness for the disease that claims approximately eight Australian lives every day.
Through the NBCF's initiative, Bridge to 2030, Aussies can climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge to raise funds to support new research and those affected by breast cancer.
Above all else, Dolan wants women not to get complacent and remember to check their breasts.
"Both cancers I found myself, so test yourself. Feel yourself, make sure you know your body, look in the mirror and see if there's any changes. If I had have left it any longer, I don't know what would've happened."
Bridge to 2030 will take place on Friday the 18th of May 2018. To get involved:
- Recruit and register your fundraising team at Bridgeto2030.org.au.
- Personalise your page and spread the word.
- Get your office involved. Hold a fundraising morning tea, bake sale or raffle to help your team reach their goal!
- Send reminders to your networks and encourage them to sponsor your team.
Mamamia spoke to children's entertainer Tina Harris about surviving breast cancer below.
Shout out to all Dads! Here at Mamamia we are always looking for ways to make Mamamia even better. Dads, we need you to help us do that by filling out this quick 15 min survey for us. Click the button below for your say.
Top Comments
I'm a radiographer. Even if we think it's nothing, we aren't able to tell patients one way or another (I mean-a pretty obvious broken arm is one thing...). We are trained to take the images, not read them.
And even if I think it's nothing, it still gets sent to a radiologist (who is a doctor trained to read the images) and they send a report with their findings to the referring doctor.
this has been my experience the odd times I've had dealing with radiographers; both times for slightly odd lumps (thankfully nothing terribly exciting so far!), they've been very calm and pleasant and non-scary, but always, always got a radiologist to come and look and pronounce, without saying much either way re any sort of possible diagnosis. It's best to be sure that what you're being told is most likely to be clearly factual, even if those facts are hard and possibly worrying.
While I know this to be totally true I also have had some experience of the flip side. My daughter had hurt her shoulder coming off her bike, we went to the hospital & were assured it couldn’t be broken as she just sat there holding her arm. During her X-ray I heard the radiographer gasp out loud & call for a Dr immediately, my daughter’s ball joint in her shoulder was cracked right through. I remember her saying to me that it was a significant break. Another occasion I begged the radiographer to give me some idea of the findings of my ultra sound which she did. There are some very kind souls out there who are able to give you an idea without actually giving you the entire information. I’m guessing it’s a potential minefield for both sides but I would never blame a radiographer for giving or not giving information as it is not their job.
It's not a "minefield" so much as a dangerous overstepping of professional boundaries if a radiographer attempts to interpret images. They simply are not qualified or trained to do so. The problem arises not when they make a call on a finding that is so obvious almost anyone could pick it, but when they miss a critical pathology because of their lack of training, but offer false reassurance to the patient (which can then lead to the patient not bothering to follow up with their doctor because they got the "all clear").
An obviously broken arm/leg etc in the ED is one thing, and I will say something. But not only am I not trained to read the images-even for really obvious cancer that I can see-but I'm not trained or qualified to tell someone they have cancer. Nor do I want to be that person. That's for their doctor to do.
I'm also not going to say it looks fine to me, incase there's something there that I haven't noticed. It's actually not a kind soul that tells you to wait til you follow up with your doctor-what if I said it was fine, and you went to the doctor and it wasn't? What if I say I can see something and it turns out to be a benign cyst and I've stressed you out for nothing.