Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2008/January 2009 | Page 25

INTERVIEW

life

My new hair
Lauren Ford was just 22 when she was diagnosed with cancer. She
wants others to benefit from her experience of coping with the
disease, and as a hairdresser she has a unique opportunity to make a
difference. She talks to Roz Whistance

IT’S hard enough – oh so very hard – to
be told you’ve got cancer. But somehow it
seems all the more unfair, all the more of
a cheap trick, if you are just starting out
in life. When Lauren Ford, an attractive
23-year-old hairdresser, and mother of
a little boy, was diagnosed with a rare
form of the disease she thought the end
was in sight. This is her story: she has
turned devastation into inspiration, and is
determined to help others where no help

"No-one talked to me about what to
expect, so when my hair came out in
handfuls I was devastated. I had to get
my mum to shave the last two patches
on my head."
was forthcoming for herself.
“I loved my hair,” says Lauren. “I never
had more than a centimetre cut off.” She
is a sparky bright-eyed girl, looking fit
and well, and her hair today is crafted in
a funky spiked style. “Three weeks after I
started chemotherapy I was fiddling with
my hair and five strands just came out in
my hands. The more I pulled, the more it
came out. I was left with two patches of
hair on my head.”
Now some might say ‘What’s all this
about hair? She’s recovering from cancer,
she’s alive, that’s the main thing.’ And
indeed it is. But, as they say about
international conflict, you not only have
to win the war, you have to win the peace.
In order to regain the person she once
was, Lauren had to get back to looking
normal – and that had to be a different
normal. It is the importance of surviving
the after effects of treatment that she
wants to pass on to others.

“I didn’t tell anyone I was ill,” she says,
“because I didn’t want them to think I
was going to die.” That was precisely what
she thought when she was told she had a
tumour. “I asked: does that mean I’ve got
cancer? The consultant said yes, but the
odds were in my favour. As I cried my eyes
out I thought: how can he compare my life
to ‘odds’.”
Two years ago Lauren had discovered a
lump in her stomach which was diagnosed
as endometriosis. The lump grew – she
looked six months pregnant – until her
doctor said they should get it out to have
a look. It turned out to be a female form
of testicular cancer called dysgerminoma
– an extremely rare condition but curable
without the need for chemotherapy if
caught early.
But too much time had passed between
her discovery of the lump and its correct
diagnosis. Lauren’s ovary and fallopian
tube had to be removed, and she was put
on a punishing course of chemotherapy.
From February to May she spent every
Wednesday at Southampton General
hospital, and every three weeks she had
to spend three days there. “Chemotherapy
causes your body to swell up. I went for
treatment in my jeans and by the time
I came out I’d be bursting out of them,
waddling up the road.” This is one of
many facts about cancer treatment which
she feels isn’t widely-enough known.
She believes the more information you
have the better you can mentally prepare
yourself.
There was a lot to deal with. “In the
ward I was surrounded by old people
who might not be going to get better, and

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I’m thinking ‘I’m not going to get better
either.’ ” She would have loved to have
been with other young people – even on
unisex wards – rather than feel as isolated
as she did. “I never had anyone to talk
to.”
She hated not having the energy to play
with her little boy, and says she could see
he was confused by the change in her.
However, because he was so young at the
time he has forgotten that period.
Lauren wasn’t offered a MacMillan
nurse, and it was her mother who lovingly
and devotedly cared for her. “My mum
was amazing,” says Lauren, her eyes
welling up. “She took me and my little boy
in – she was so strong! She’d only just lost

"I feel let down. I want to make people
aware that more help is needed. Just
because you’re young doesn’t mean you
can’t have cancer."
her own mum to cancer so it was hard for
her to watch me go through it.” She adds:
“It would have been good to have someone
else to talk to, because you worry about
worrying your family.”
Lauren doesn’t gripe or moan. She is
amazingly stoic about everything that
has happened to her. But there are many
aspects of her illness and recovery that
she believes should have been dealt with
in a better way, such as the provision of
information and counselling. Perhaps
inevitably, given how rare her particular
form of the condition she had, there was
nobody on the Island who could give her
information, and it wasn’t until half way
through her treatment that she received a
leaflet about it.

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