Centre’s Battle to Beat a Killer ; Liverpool’s Linda McCartney Centre Has Been Fighting Cancer for Five Years. Laura Davis Reports

By Laura Davis

WHEN Linda McCartney died of breast cancer in 1998, her name was given to a new centre that would help other women fight the disease. It opened in 2000 in the former nursing college building at the Royal Liverpool Hospital and, five years on, has seen 120,000 patients.

One in nine women in the UK will develop breast cancer at some point in her life – more than 41,000 are diagnosed each year.

It has become the most common cancer in the country and is the leading cause of death in women aged 34-54.

The wait between finding a lump and discovering whether it is malignant or not is a terrifying time.

The Linda McCartney Centre aims to make the experience less stressful by providing an instant diagnosis facility at its Breast Assessment Unit.

Diagnosing and treating breast cancer remains its largest concern, but what many people do not realise is the significant work staff do to tackle other forms of illness.

As well as having a chemotherapy day care centre, a bone marrow transplantation unit, an eye cancer unit and a liver and colo- rectal centre, there are a range of specialists at the centre dealing with outpatient treatment. It also caters for palliative care.

Here are five of its success stories, one for each year the Linda McCartney Centre has been in existence

The Linda McCartney Centre

p THE three exterior extensions to the Linda McCartney Centre cost pounds 1m.

p The initial cost of stripping the original building and painting the exterior cost more than pounds 1m.

p The paint on the exterior walls of the centre are electro conductive which enables the building to wash itself when it rains.

p The overall cost of the centre was more than pounds 5m, pounds 4m of which was raised by the Forget Me Not Appeal. p More than 100 members of staff work at the centre.

p More than 450 patients on average are seen at the centre each week.

p To make a donation to the centre, call the appeals office on 0151 706 3153 or write to The Appeals Office, The Linda McCartney Centre, Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Prescot Street, Liverpool L7 8XP

2000/2001

IRIS THOMAS, one of the very first patients to be admitted to the Linda McCartney Centre, can remember exactly what was happening in her life the day she found a lump in herleft breast. Her daughter- in-law and three grandchildren, who live in Antigua, had just left after a visit and she was taking a relaxing shower.

“I found a lump the size of a pea and, because it was a bank holiday, I had to wait two days before I could see a doctor,” she recalls.

After a range of tests, including a mammogram and a needle biopsy, Iris was told she had breast cancer. “I sat there stunned. My first thoughts were for my daughters. I was worried it would mean they would be more likely to get the disease themselves.

“The pea-sized lump I had found turned out to be just a cyst so that little lump saved my life,” explains Iris, 55. Her first experience of chemotherapy took place just before Christmas in 2000, just three months after the centre had opened. Iris, a service administrator at a psychiatric day hospital, says she couldn’t have coped with the radiotherapy and mastectomy that followed without the support of her oncologist, Dr Sue O’Reilly, and her family. She says: “When I first found out I had to have a masectomy, I got into a total panic. She made you feel as if you could do anything. She has been my inspiration throughout this.

“My family has also seen me through. They told me I looked good when I knew I looked a mess and my youngest daughter changed her university from Sunderland to Salford so she could stay at home, even though I asked her not to.”

Five years on and Iris believes her experience has made her change her outlook on life. She has taken a second job, as a steward at Liverpool Football Club’s executive boxes, and, having lost her long, dark hair, she has decided to go blonde. “People kept saying to me ‘you’re so brave’, but you’re not brave, you get caught up in wanting to live. I’m not ready to go yet

2002

GRANDMOTHER-OF-THREE Mary Evans, right , became ill with a bacterial infection in her stomach that wouldn’t go away despite a course of antibiotics prescribed by her doctor.

She was referred to the Linda McCartney Centre, where she was treated by nurse consultant Pauline Ingham.

“I just started feeling ill at the beginning. At the hospital, I was given some more antibiotics and they worked but the trouble was that my stomach was producing too much of the acid that it makes to fight infection and to digest food.

“It was building up in my chest, causing an awful lot of pain, and I couldn’t eat,” remembers Mary, 66, who lives in Aigburth.

Ms Ingham developed a treatment plan that eventually reduced the build up of acid”I have been told that 80% of people that have this problem are usually okay.

I was one of the unlucky ones.

“I thought I was going to die and, when you’re in that much pain, you want to die.

I was so weak that I could hardly walk,” says Mary.

Thanks to the medication, Mary is able to eat again and has regained a lot of her lost weight. She is now expecting her first great-grandchild

2003

SHORTLY after suffering a heart attack in 2002, retired secretary Gwendoline Hughes, left , was diagnosed with cancer of the colon.

The 80-year-old, who lives in Knotty Ash, underwent an operation to remove part of her bowel.

She says: “It got towards Easter and I was getting along okay but then I felt that my health wasn’t progressing as it should.

“I went to the doctor and she took my blood test”The day they told me it was cancer, I had the shock of my life.”

Gwendoline was prescribed iron tablets because she was losing blood and was hospitalised for three weeks for her operation.

“I had the feeling that it was happening to someone else and not to me and I thought ‘ I’ll either come through it or I don’t’.

“Everything went all right,” she says

2004

WHEN Geoff Matthews, right , began suffering with jaundice, he went through a number of tests before doctors diagnosed a blockage in his pancreas. Further tests revealed pancreatic cancer.

Geoff, 47, says: “I was diagnosed in August 2004 and within a month I went into hospital for an operation to remove my gall bladder, a bit of my stomach and the growth around my pancreas”When you find out it’s cancer, initially you panic. “Then you try to face up to reality. “I recovered fairly quickly which was good. Then I had chemotherapy but I didn’t manage to stay the full course because of the physical impact on me but I received 95% of the benefit. “I was absolutely wrecked at that point,” remembers Geoff, who is an IT project manager for a Bootle-based company Geoff, who lives in Roby, now has to return to the Linda McCartney Centre every three months for a check-up. He says he is grateful for the help and support he received from the staff there throughout his treatment.

“I have been very fortunate to get what I felt was very good treatment. My family also had support as the Macmillan Nurses were always available to talk to,” he says

2005

SUSAN BALL, below , was diagnosed with breast cancer in April and finished her last three-weekly session of chemotherapy last week. She is now waiting to undergo an operation either to remove the lump, or more likely her breast, followed by radiotherapy. “I started chemotherapy on May 14. I was very impressed by how quickly it happened.

“I have two children, they’re 15 and 18, and I told them about it right away. My daughter was upset obviously but now they’re fine,” explains Susan, 50, who is a lunchtime assistant at a Liverpool primary school. “I have been fine. I’ve had no problem at all with the chemotherapy and the nurses have been wonderful. I haven’t been too sick. I think people cope with it in different ways,” says Susan, who lives in Woolton. One of the most difficult decisions for women to face, after they have been told they must have a mastectomy, is whether or not to have their breast reconstructed. Some women are keen to regain their original body shape, others feel it is too invasive. Some are proud of their scars and see them as a new part of their identity.

“I’m not looking forward to the masectomy because I’ve never been into hospital before so the operation will be a shock. But it’s something that’s got to be done.

“I don’t think I’ll be having reconstruction,” explains Susan. The help and support of her family has been crucial to the way in which Susan is coping with her illness.

She says: “It’s just something that’s got to be sorted. There’s no use just sitting at home and pondering on it