For Hedwig Hegtermans, volunteering for Breast Cancer Care helped her feel normal again after treatment finished.
For Hedwig Hegtermans, volunteering for Breast Cancer Now helped her feel normal again after treatment finished.
In September 2012 I turned 50. To my surprise, two weeks later I got my first invitation to a have a routine screening mammogram. I went along thinking: it’ll all be fine. Afterwards I got a letter saying they wanted me to go back to the hospital, but I wasn’t worried because I knew a lot of women are called back. I had another mammogram, an ultrasound and a biopsy.
At the time there was a big discussion about whether too many people are having unnecessary surgery because of screening. So I had this whole list of questions. But then I got the results – I had DCIS, which is an early form of breast cancer, but there was also invasive cancer.
My list of questions, and everything else, went out of my head. I was completely shocked. It was recommended that I should have a mastectomy, chemotherapy, probably radiotherapy, Herceptin and hormone treatment. The whole gamut.
A life-saver
I wanted all the information available. My breast care nurse gave me Breast Cancer Now’s booklets about the type of cancer I had and about understanding my pathology report. Then I went on the website and ordered all the booklets that were relevant to me.
Having reliable information, written in an understandable way, made my experience of treatment completely different, although you have no real idea until you go through it. The chemo does such strange things to your body! But the publications were a life-saver. If I compare my breast cancer experience to a journey, then Breast Cancer Care gave me the road map.
Wanting to help
Their information helped me so much that I wanted to give something back. I called the office and said: Do you need volunteers?
I started doing office work in the Helpline. Coming to the office once a week helped me feel normal again. For more than a year your schedule is geared around treatment – you’re living from hospital appointment to hospital appointment. Then when that’s finished you have to put your life back together.
I also trained for other volunteer roles on the Moving Forward courses and Someone Like Me service.
I like doing Moving Forward. It’s there to give people a kind of manual for how to move beyond that intense treatment.
A lot of women feel like they’ve fallen into a sort of black hole after hospital treatment finishes.
It’s helped me, too. It’s difficult to recognise that you move forward, because it happens gradually. But when I’m talking about my experiences and listening to the women on the course, I realise that in those three years I have moved forward quite a bit.
This year I’m going to be a model in Breast Cancer Now’s London fashion show. When I found out, I was petrified and excited. But I’m determined to enjoy it.
At the Moving Forward courses I say: of course it was horrible to have to go through the diagnosis, to hear you have breast cancer, and to have treatment. And I hope I never, ever have to go through it again. But on the other hand I’ve met some fantastic people, both medical staff and fellow patients, who I’m still in touch with. So it has brought some positive changes too.
Find out more about becoming a Breast Cancer Now volunteer and how you can give support to others facing breast cancer.
Content created June 2016; next planned review 2018