VIEW, Issue three, 2012


Website: viewdigital.org


I was determined to survive says mum


Page 9


Karen Patterson found solace in playing the piano, which, she says, was a very ‘therapeutic distraction’ from her illness Picture: Kevin Cooper


K cancer.


aren Patterson was a healthy thirtysome- thing trying for a baby with her husband Brian when she was diagnosed with ovarian


cer threaten her life, it would also destroy her abil- ity to carry a baby. That was over 14 years ago. That she’s still here to tell her story and is the mother of two young boys is testament to her determina- tion to survive.


Karen, a civil servant, tells me she had to dispel any thoughts of having a child when she got the diagno- sis. Instead, she became consumed with beating her illness. “Your focus changes very quickly and at that stage any thoughts of a family had just gone. My focus was on getting better and finding out what was wrong,” she says.


She had been unable to fall pregnant naturally and was undergoing IVF treatment before her diagnosis.


wrong,” she says. “We were just told, as you do with IVF, to wait to see what happened. There was no real alarm bells going off at that stage.” Karen’s doctor had decided to run tests on fluid


“At that point there was nothing apparently


taken when her eggs were extracted. “When I phoned the hospital to say the IVF cycle hadn’t worked, we were told that the doctor needed to talk to me and they had results back from the lab.”


ceive, she was instead told tests had found malig- nant cells. "I knew nothing about cancer. (I was) very igno-


rant. Cancer was something you died off. I was in my thirties at the time – nobody I knew of my age got cancer. “And you have this great fear, this great dread of


Sitting in the kitchen of her Lisburn home, It was devastating news – not only did the can-


Reporter Lucy Gollogly talks to Karen Patterson, who, with the support of the Ulster Cancer Foundation, fought back after she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer


she was due to go into hospital for surgery the fol- lowing Monday. Filled with anxiety, she phoned the Ulster Cancer Foundation. Karen says the charity's support was “tremendous”. "They were very helpful and spent a long time


going through various information with me, and probably putting my mind at rest before I went in for the operation,” she recalls. Tumours were found on an ovary and in her


In a month when Karen had been hoping to con-


womb. It meant doctors would have to perform a hysterectomy, and she would never carry a child. A week later she started the first of six chemotherapy sessions. The treatment would last several gruelling months, but Karen was supported by two Ulster Cancer Foundation counsellors on the oncology ward. She says she found having someone to ask about the side-effects of chemotherapy especially valuable. “You don’t want to worry your family so you try to hide some of your anxiety and your fears, so it’s nice when you have someone like that, that you can ask anything.” Karen also found solace in music, which she says


was a “very therapeutic” distraction from her illness. “There’s nothing like coming in and playing the


what, if any, your future would hold.” Karen had received the diagnosis on a Friday and


piano,” says Karen of the instrument which still sits in her living room. The treatment was successful and around a year


later, Karen's thoughts again turned to starting a family. She and Brian approached their health trust to enquire about adoption. Heartbreakingly, they were turned down for medical reasons. They resigned themselves to the situation but a


few years later they tried again, and the couple were eventually allowed to adopt after Karen had been clear of cancer for five years. “It all turned out very well. We adopted two lit-


tle boys, so it had a happy ending,” she says, as her children play in the next room. Karen has some advice for people who find themselves in a similar situation. “If you feel there’s something wrong within your-


self, because you know your body better than any- one else, go to your doctor. “Be strong, be determined, because if the cancer


ing very ill through the side-effects of chemother- apy, it will get better, and life does get back to pretty much normal. I’m still here over 14 years later.”


is there, you must fight it. “Always keep positive and even when you’re feel-


• Contact the Ulster Cancer Foundation, at 40-44 Eglantine Avenue, BT9 6DX, phone, 028 9066 3281, if you want to receive advice or support Internet: www.ulstercancer.org


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25