Sarah Harding's tragic death is also a breast cancer lesson

This is the title of Peta Bee's piece in Times2 this Monday, 7th September. It describes how she had made the common mistake of delaying seeking advice for a lump she dismissed as a 'cyst' then breast pain that she attributed to irritation from her guitar strap. When the pain became overwhelming she sought help but by then it was too late.

Reading her story, I felt not only sorrow at the loss of a young life full of promise, but also survivor guilt. In 1993, I, a medic (!), had dismissed the lump in my right breast as 'just another cyst' until a year later I faced up to the fact that it was getting bigger. It was breast cancer. I was 56 then (1993) with adult children. I had a mastectomy and the underarm lymph glands were clear. In 2016, a tiny lump, a cancer in the mastectomy scar, was treated promptly by biopsy and 3 weeks' radiotherapy to the scar area.

So here I am in 2021, 28 years on with my 83rd birthday in a fortnight, a living tribute to my good luck and others' good management of my breast cancer, and living proof that, although cancer can't be cured (there are a few exceptions), it can be managed for many years,