'Get yourself checked' - Jeanette Warke

As Breast Cancer Awareness Month begins, popular local community worker, Jeanette Warke, is urging women to check their breasts regularly and note any changes.

Jeanette, who is the project manager with the Cathedral Youth Club in the Fountain area of the city, made the call during the group’s annual Macmillan Cancer Support Coffee Morning.

Over a cup of tea and a tray-bake, Jeanette revealed the charity had always been close to her heart but it was more so at the minute due to her recent breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.

The coffee morning was the Cathedral Youth Club’s third fundraiser for Macmillan this year. Members climbed Errigal in July and held a garden party in their allotments later in the summer.

Speaking candidly, Jeanette said: “Macmillan Cancer Support is very important to me at the minute because I am relying on them, which is not something I ever thought I would be saying.

“Through a routine check in early July, I discovered I had a lump in my breast. I was quite taken aback when I felt it and I thought, ‘It can’t be’ as you do and I left it. The next night I decided to check again and, sure enough, it was still there.

“I had absolutely no symptoms. I was working away, full of beans.

“I phoned the doctor and she said, ‘You’d better come down’. That was Monday morning. I had spent the whole weekend worrying.

“The GP said she was going to fast-track me to Altnagelvin. It was the worst thing I could have heard but at the same time I couldn’t believe it.”

Recalling her mammogram, Jeanette said: “I was sitting waiting on the results and they came back down and they said they’d like to do a biopsy and the minute they said that, I knew,” she said.

“The biopsy was very painful. I was then sent home and about two weeks later, I had an appointment with Mr Diggin, the breast surgeon.

“He said, ‘I’m sorry’ and I knew to look at this face and I thought, ‘Dear God, no’. I was just in bits but I think I handled it well.

“Mr Diggin was very, very nice. He is very compassionate and there was a lovely nurse with him, who is now my breast cancer care nurse, Carol-Anne. So, Mr Diggin said he would do my surgery and then my treatment. To date I have had two surgeries carried out. The tumour has been removed, along with some lymph nodes.

“Thank God the cancer was only in one of them. My second surgery was needed because of the swelling in my arm following my first operation.

“It was like walking about with a tennis ball under my arm. It was horrendous,” said Jeanette, who was heading to hospital after the Coffee Morning to have her dressings removed.

Jeanette had an appointment with her Oncologist, Mr O’Neill, in Altnagelvin on Thursday past.

“He is starting me on my chemo on October 11,” said Jeanette. “It will run every week for 12 weeks. I think I might need to get radiotherapy after the chemo but I’m not sure yet.”

Asked how she was processing everything she has been through, Jeanette said: “It is as if it is another me, somewhere else, dealing with this. I am still carrying on working and doing the best I can. 

“If I feel tired, I sit down and I don’t work until nine at night. But at the same time, I can’t sit and do nothing. I went through our whole summer scheme trying to deal with it. I was up Errigal before the operation and it kept me going.

“And, I can’t speak highly enough of our health care because, to be honest with you, those nurses in Altnagelvin, they treat you as if you are the only one with cancer. Every individual gets this treatment. The surgeons are the same. They are so compassionate, so caring.

“To anybody else facing the same situation, I would say, ‘Try not to be scared and try not to overthink and just take one day at a time and have faith.’”