The bravest cut

NEWS that Hollywood star Angelina Jolie has had a preventive double mastectomy to reduce her chance of developing cancer will have struck a chord with many North-East women who have faced a similar choice.

Jolie opted for the procedure after genetic tests confirmed she was at very high risk of developing breast cancer.

Redcar mother-of-two Sharyn Clarkson, 60, had to make a similarly difficult decision after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“I found a lump in 1994 and then had chemotherapy and radiotherapy,” says Sharyn, a retired psychiatric nurse.

“They put me on Tamoxifen for five years, but it came back nine years later.

“I had to have the left breast off so I opted to have both off. I always said if it came back, that is what I would do. It was very much my decision and I told my consultant that I wasn’t moving until she agreed.”

Sharyn says she admires Jolie for going public after her operation, but has been irritated by some other celebrities who have agonised publicly in newspapers and magazines before having surgery.

“The thing is about some of these celebrities is that they have double mastectomies and reconstructions straight away. They don’t know what life is like without breasts.”

Jolie took the decision to have the procedure because she carries the ‘‘faulty’’ gene BRCA1, which sharply increases her risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

‘‘My doctors estimated that I had an 87 per cent risk of breast cancer and a 50 per cent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman,’’ she wrote in an article for the New York Times.

The Tomb Raider actress and humanitarian campaigner said she was writing about her ordeal in the hope that other women might benefit from her experience.

In the article, she said she finished three months of medical procedures on April 27, and added: ‘‘During that time I have been able to keep this private and to carry on with my work.’’ She paid tribute to her ‘‘loving and supportive” partner, Brad Pitt.

Jolie, who lost her mother to cancer at 56, said waking up from the operation can feel ‘‘like a scene out of a science-fiction film’’.

Urging women to get checked out, the star said: ‘‘For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options. I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices.’’ Liberty X singer Michelle Heaton underwent a double mastectomy last year. She says Jolie’s decision to go public with news of her op was incredibly important in raising awareness and giving encouragement to women in similar situations.

“I really do think that the BRCA gene has only really come to light over the last year or two,” she says.

“It is a massive thing that women need to learn about and know that if it runs in your family, you need to go and get tested because there are options.

It shouldn’t be too scary if you have the right information.”

Foreign Secretary and Richmond MP, William Hague, who in March visited refugee camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo with Jolie as part of a humanitarian campaign, describes her as ‘‘a brave lady’’ who would be ‘‘an inspiration to many’’.

Since having her double mastectomy, Sharyn has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of breast cancer.

She now manages the Cancer Research UK shop where she has worked for ten years and every October she organises a fundraising dip in the sea at Redcar, known as The Pink Dip.

“People are surviving breast cancer much longer now and that has a lot to do with research,” says Sharyn.

And while every woman in similar circumstances has to make her own mind up, Sharyn is adamant that she made the right choice. “My advice is, don’t gamble with your life.

I didn’t want to die and it was the right decision at the time.”