‘I will be forever grateful for life-saving breast cancer treatment’

A mum diagnosed with breast cancer says hospital staff’s diligence may have helped save her life.

Zoe Cloke, a technologist for an engineering and energy harvesting company and charity trustee, is sharing her story for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. She found a lump seven months after being given the all-clear at a breast screening appointment.

Her GP referred her to East Kent Hospital’s one-stop breast clinic at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, where she had a mammogram and ultrasound scan. The radiographer believed the lump was a cyst, but was concerned about a tiny area and decided to do a biopsy as well.

Zoe, 51, who lives in Herne, said: “Nothing showed on the mammogram, just as nothing had showed at my screening earlier that year, but they did say I had dense breast tissue which makes it harder to spot things.

“The ultrasound showed a cyst but there was one bit the radiographer wasn’t happy with. She kept going over it and it was because of her diligence that it was identified.

“She could have just said it was a cyst and not spotted the extra bit, and it could then have been months more before it was diagnosed.

“I had no clue this clinic existed, and it was absolutely brilliant – the most efficient thing I have ever seen in the NHS.

“The worst part of the whole experience is the waiting, and thanks to the clinic I had a consultation, mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy within 90 minutes.”

The biopsy confirmed it was cancer, and mum-of-three Zoe had an MRI scan before surgery to remove a six-millimetre tumour from her breast, and a three-millimetre tumour in one of her lymph nodes. They were later confirmed to be hormone-positive tumours, meaning she will need hormone suppression treatment for several years.

She then had two cycles of chemotherapy, followed by radiotherapy, battling side effects including blood clots, hair loss and numbness, as well as an adverse reaction that needed an emergency trip to hospital.

But it was when she developed sepsis after an infection that Zoe says hospital staff’s interventions again proved potentially life-saving.

She said: “It is drummed into you that if you develop a temperature you need to go to the emergency department, so that is what I did.

“But although they did their best to keep me safe because I was immunosuppressed, I did feel I would be better off at home.

“I wanted to be discharged but the nurse was really insistent that I should stay until I had seen a doctor. He could just have let me go, they were incredibly busy so that would have been the easy option, but he didn’t.

“Tests showed it was sepsis, and another 24 hours without treatment could have meant a very different outcome.”

Zoe, who is chair of the Horsebridge Arts Centre in Whitstable, had her treatment at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital and said staff, particularly Carla, were “absolutely brilliant”.

She said: “They made me feel like a person, not a patient. We were able to talk about life outside chemotherapy and that made such a difference.

“My appreciation of the treatment I was given was off the charts. Every single day from 8am-6pm there were patients constantly cycling through, there was no let-up for the staff, but they were amazing.

“I also appreciated the fact we didn’t have to think about whether we could afford the treatment, or whether insurance would cover it, which is a reality for my friends and family elsewhere.”

Zoe is now on regular treatment to suppress her hormones, with six-monthly infusions to protect her bones, and is working with her medical team to find the combination with the least side effects.

She said: “In a way, accepting this part has been one of the hardest. I rang the bell to signify the end of the chemotherapy, but that isn’t the end of treatment, or the point when you suddenly feel better.

“I still have nausea and dizziness, and joint pain, but I am still alive and were it not for a couple of people that might not have been the outcome.

“It was caught really early, and I was listened to and taken seriously. If that radiographer had dismissed it as a cyst, I would not have gone back because I would have been reassured it was nothing. 

“Breast cancer still kills, and the more we can do to change that figure, the better.

“Having cancer hasn’t made me have some sort of mad epiphany, and decide to live life to the fullest – life is still life, I still have a job to do and a family to raise.

“But my treatment was life-saving, not life-extending, and I will forever be grateful for that.”