{"id":27248,"date":"2021-07-13T15:59:53","date_gmt":"2021-07-13T15:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.cancerresearchuk.org\/?p=23301"},"modified":"2024-11-03T15:14:35","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T15:14:35","slug":"do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do-when-the-professional-becomes-personal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do-when-the-professional-becomes-personal\/","title":{"rendered":"Do as I say, not as I do \u2013 when the professional becomes personal\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

I\u2019ve worked for Cancer Research UK for over 5 years now. Before that, I worked in the NHS for 6. You\u2019d think I\u2019d be a model patient, I\u2019d know all the signs and symptoms and be meticulous about checking myself, attending my screening appointments, all of that.<\/span><\/p>\n

So it\u2019s strange that I only properly looked at my moles recently, after I heard about a friend of a friend who died from melanoma. It\u2019s even stranger when you know that I\u2019m a pale, freckly redhead, with a family history of skin cancer. And it turns out I\u2019m absolutely covered in abnormal moles.<\/span><\/p>\n

My two-week wait referral took a month. A month of rationalising, panicking, ill-advised googling. A month of taking everything at work far too personally, sleepless nights, spiralling with anxiety to the point that I knew all the treatment options, had thought through how we\u2019d bring forward the wedding, how I\u2019d tell my parents. None of this was rational.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the end, it turns out I\u2019m probably fine. After an extensive and quite surreal body mapping exercise, just one of the many abnormal moles was a cause for concern, and I\u2019ll monitor it over the next few months. It turns out that for me, abnormal is probably normal.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I am left with questions like:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did I have a blind spot?\u201d<\/span><\/h2>\n

Thinking about it, I have several friends and family members with similar stories \u2013 something niggling at the back of their minds that wasn\u2019t right, but it took months or years to seek help. So what is it \u2013 fear? That typical British stiff upper lip? Not wanting to waste the doctor\u2019s time? Or just the delusion that \u201cit can\u2019t happen to me\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a big question, and I don\u2019t have the answer to it. But I know I was lucky \u2013 for me, it was just a scare. But during the pandemic, more than 45,000 fewer people have been diagnosed with cancer than we\u2019d normally expect in that time \u2013 partly because the fear of catching covid has joined that long list of reasons why people don\u2019t go to their GP.<\/span><\/p>\n

So if you\u2019ve also got some weird symptoms, please, get them checked out. It\u2019s probably nothing \u2013 and trust me, you\u2019ll feel relieved to know that \u2013 but if it\u2019s something, you\u2019re better off knowing now than later. If it\u2019s cancer, finding it early usually means less invasive treatment and a better chance of a cure.<\/span><\/p>\n

But maybe in the future this won\u2019t be such a problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe we\u2019ll all have regular blood tests that will tell us if cancer is brewing somewhere within us. Maybe there\u2019ll be better ways to monitor our symptoms at home. We hope that one day, science will render our stiff upper lips redundant. We hope that the Government will support that science too. But for now, I\u2019ve had a wake-up call \u2013 and I\u2019m off to book my smear test.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rose is special adviser to Cancer Research UK\u2019s chief executive, Michelle Mitchell OBE. She worked in Cancer Research UK\u2019s policy team for several years, and led our influencing work on access to cancer treatments. Before joining Cancer Research UK she worked in the NHS for six years as a nursing assistant.<\/em><\/p>\n

More on this topic<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve worked for Cancer Research UK for over 5 years now. Before that, I worked in the NHS for 6. You\u2019d think I\u2019d be a model patient, I\u2019d know all the signs and symptoms and be meticulous about checking myself, attending my screening appointments, all of that. So it\u2019s strange that I only properly looked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45249,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27248\/revisions\/45249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}