The enemy within - facing up to breast cancer

ROSEMARY Davies' life could well have been saved by a Government programme.

A hidden enemy working secretly to bring her down was discovered when she was called for a cancer-spotting screening at a local clinic.

When Rosemary had a mammogram just a few days after her 50th birthday, she had no idea her body was under such vicious attack.

But the old adage "life begins at 50' took a cruel turn as Rosemary was delivered the shattering news that she had breast cancer.

She readily accepted the invitation for a screening because she spotted a change in her breast - but many, lacking any incentive, skip the test which could be their life-line.

The mammography service - a type of x-ray examination which detects early signs of growths which may develop into cancer - is offered to women between 50 and 64 as part of the National Screening Programme.

"I was one of the lucky ones," said Rosemary ironically. "The screening was offered just after my birthday. The cancer was caught in the early stages.

"This is why it is important to have the screenings. They could be the difference between life and death."

She added: "It is easy to say it won't happen to you. Doctors say it is so widespread now that it affects women with no family history of the illness."

Since the cancer was detected in June, she has undergone a mastectomy to remove her breast and part of her chest muscle and had a course of radium to fight off remaining cancerous cells. She is due to undergo chemotherapy as a precautionary measure to try to prevent the cancer returning. In the short time since Rosemary's cancer was diagnosed she has become a role model for countless women.

She doesn't understand why people admire her.

To Rosemary she is simply a check-out assistant at Tesco, Hill Street, Blackburn, an ordinary mother-of-two, who lives in a terrace house and likes flower arranging and helping out with her local Beavers group.

To others, she has become a woman of heroic proportions.

But why?

She hasn't conquered Everest or rescued someone from the jaws of death, which is why she finds the heroine tag so very difficult to accept.

Her heroism lies in her attitude to a totally devastating illness which wrecks lives, tears families apart and leaves the sufferer with a death sentence hanging over their head.

Rosemary, of Dukes Brow, Blackburn, met the dark news with calm, finding it more difficult to tell her husband Raymond and two sons Paul, 27, and Mark, 25, than coming to terms with the diagnosis.

"I never went to pieces. There was nothing I could do."

She asked: "Why do people say I'm brave. I'm chicken. I had the breast off rather than just the lump removed because I was terrified of the nine per cent chance of the cancer returning."

She dismisses with a swipe of her hand the suggestion that her femininity was eroded by having a breast removed.

"It doesn't bother me. I'm more uptight about putting weight on!"

Likewise the prospect of losing her hair through chemotherapy fails to phase her. "Who is bothered about that," she said.

Rosemary overcome bitterness and fear during her ordeal.

"I said "Why me?" at first, then seconds later, I said "Why not me?" One in 12 women get it.

"I do fear chemotherapy but other people get through it and I'm prepared." Her remarkable courage isn't a front to hide her anguish, fear and uncertainty for the future. She is still in touch with reality.

"I'm quite aware that people living around me have died from cancer. I do know that cancer can reoccur and I can die.

"It is like a time-bomb. You don't know where or when the cancer will return. I'm aiming to live for another 25 years. It is all in the lap of the gods and medical science."

She is keen to point out the cracks in her heroine label.

"Once cancer is in your body, you feel vulnerable. Any aches and pains and you worry the cancer has returned.

"I sometimes worry about dying a painful death. I always imagined retiring at 60 and spending a few years doing what I want. That might not happen now.

Rosemary, who has signed up for another five years as an assistant for St Silas Beaver group in Blackburn, added: "I get frightened when I think I won't be here in five years for my family but I know people who have survived. There are a lot of treatments and we are so near to finding a cure."

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