This Morning Agony Aunt Deidre Saunders has revealed the devastating news she has breast cancer.
The telly favourite, who fans will have seen giving advice to viewers on the ITV morning show, is set to undergo surgery this weekend.
She has a “high-grade” carcinoma in her right breast, which would grow and spread aggressively had it not been discovered so early.
The 77-year-old has disclosed her news to encourage other women to get checked and not miss their breast screening appointments.
The television icon has told of her devastating diagnosis after she started feeling achy back in the summer.
She said the ache seemed to be spreading into her right breast but let it pass for “at least a month” before paying it any mind, she wrote in her Sun column.
“Is it anything to worry about? Is it just muscular? I am 77, after all, is it just the aches and pains of getting older?” she thought to herself before finally booking in to see her GP two weeks before she was due to go on holiday.
She was later seen at the breast clinic at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, by a nurse who could instantly feel a difference in her right breast and put her on the NHS two-week cancer pathway - where anyone suspected of having cancer is seen within two weeks for a hospital diagnosis.
Deidre fears she’d have to cancel her holiday but sure enough, 10 days later she was booked in on a Saturday to have a mammogram and an ultrasound scan.
“This is when it became clear there was something to worry about,” she said.
“They told me to go away and enjoy my holiday, but I was booked in for a biopsy — taking a sample of the cluster of cells they could see — as soon as I got back.
“The cells were malignant, and I now have NHS surgery booked to remove the carcinoma this Saturday.”
Deidre said she has a “teeny, tiny carcinoma, a cluster of malignant cells in a duct in my right breast”.
The ITV favourite is booked in to have surgery on Saturday to remove it, as the cancer is labelled high-grade and would grow and spread aggressively had it not been discovered so early.
But Deidre revealed her cancer could have gone undetected had she not booked an appointment after her aching symptoms started.
Her consultant asked her in her initial appointment when she had last had a mammogram.
Deidre realised it had been nearly ten years, because of a shocking NHS error.
“I happen to be among a cohort of several thousand women who, by error, did not get invited for a mammogram when they turned 70,” she revealed.
“We were offered it a couple of years later, but by then I reckoned I must be too old to need it any more as the NHS stops inviting you for a screening after that age.”
She went on to reveal that the NHS is concerned with “over-diagnosing” women over 71 who have a cancer found in a screening which would not have become life-threatening and having treatment they do not need.
“Well, if something is found that is not likely to develop into a serious threat to your health, such as a low-grade carcinoma, surely you and the medical team can decide to wait and see?” she snapped.
She is now urging women over 70 to use their right to request screening every three years, rather than just going when they are invited.
- If you have cancer-related concerns, contact Macmillan Cancer Support on 0808 808 0000 or see macmillan.org.uk.
