I’ve had a double mastectomy. I don’t find it straightforward to spell or to pronounce, but it’s the term I find easiest to use when I tell people what has happened to me. I just can’t put it in plain English, and say exactly what the surgeons did. This may change, but it seems too painful to me, and I worry about the people listening.
Generally, since I was diagnosed with breast cancer last summer I have tried to avoid couching things in terms that may be unclear. Years of writing articles on complicated financial products and schemes in my roles on the Guardian’s Money and Investigations desks have conditioned me to avoid jargon. I like to get to the point and use language that is accessible, rather than words that exclude people, and in the main I have taken this approach to my illness.
