"Problems in my breast care"

The registrar who saw me on initial appointment left me with the words, "we'll see you next week with the results, that's is of course, if the path lab haven't lost them, since you know what what the NHS is like don't you, always losing things".

I do actually. Fortunately for the registrar, the path lab hadn't lost them. After the chemo I received a letter, stating that I would be seen in March 2011, so I had to sort that out. In between waiting for someone to remove my tumour, I must have been seen at least twice, every visit I had to strip off just in case the surgeon had forgotten what my breasts looked like.

He strode in one day with another doctor, who sat there, as mute as the swan. I was never asked if I wanted this doctor there. The doctor then yanked back the curtains, oggled my breasts, and then proceeded to me make feel like a prize cow, poking my udder.

I had a letter someone who wrote such a cheery article on breast cancer for the local paper, it had us all writing our wills out, she also recommended we all measure our tumours.

Fast forward to 2013 and reconstruction I didn't turn up one month. I had another appointment in which the surgery didn't take place due to cancellation. "Don't worry someone will get back to you re another date and as to what you re the medication you're on." Well no one did, so, after four months, I wrote another letter which was totally ignored.

Ended up yet again going to the breast unit to sort that out. I spent four months off the medication. I received another letter stating that date was cancelled. I don't particularly want twenty thousand volts of toxic radioactivity shot through healthy breast tissue, so I didn't turn up for the annual mammogram. (I had already received yet another invite for these hideous examinations since I hit the age for screening, but no one had told them I was already having annual mammograms.)

In a letter my consultant said that if I didn't turn up for the annual mammogram (I'd missed 2) then, and I quote, "I will have to cancel the surgery".

So I have taken legal advice and the unit have been told I'm never seeing that consultant again. I have written yes, you've guessed it, another letter to the trust. This one was dated the 7 May and signed for. And yes, I'm still waiting for even an acknowledgement.