Deidre Sanders, the country's most famous agony aunt has shared the news that she has breast cancer, revealing her diagnosis after missing a mammogram due to a NHS error. putting her 'aches and pains' down to her age.
The 77-yerar-old, affectionately known to both newspaper readers and viewers of This Morning as 'Dear Deidre' has explained that she she was among a cohort of several thousand women who, by error, did not get invited for a mammogram when they turned 70 and, as a result, hadn't had a check for 10 years by the time it was discovered there 'was something to worry about.'
Speaking to The Sun, the paper she worked for for countless years, Deidre explained that she started to feel tension in her shoulders, saying: "I must have let at least a month pass while I wondered, “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?”.
"I finally got round to calling our GP practice a fortnight before I was due to go on holiday."
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Elaborating on what happened next, Deidre added: "I talked to the advanced nurse practitioner over the phone that morning.
"She saw me in person that afternoon, thought she could feel a difference in the right breast and put me on the NHS two-week cancer pathway (the referral process where anyone suspected of having cancer is seen within two weeks for a hospital diagnosis)."
While Deidre was assured that she didn't need to cancel the holiday she had booked, she had a biopsy when she returned and then was given the bad news. Deidre added: " 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 was due to talk further about her diagnosis on Tuesday's This Morning, when, as often does, joins hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willioughby in the studio.
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