'I truly believe singing in the choir saved my life'

GROUP HELPED NURSE DURING HER CANCER RECOVERY

- By DAVID POWELL Daily Post Reporter

A SENIOR nurse reveals how singing in a choir saved her life after two cancer diagnoses and the pandemic cancelling a checkup may have also helped keep her alive.

Her body was fixed by the NHS yet her mind was broken after two gruelling cancer recoveries but now she feels her life is back on track.

As a busy ward manager for a North Wales hospital, Christine Plant knew perhaps more than most about the signs and symptoms of cancer. When she noticed blood in her poo occasionally, she knew the best thing to do was to get an appointment with her GP, and a follow up consultation for a colonoscopy.

As a full-time nurse, married with two teenage boys, a very busy and demanding job, Christine, 54, of Conwy, still believed that the demands of her job, perhaps were at the heart of her problems.

"I thought I eat healthy food I had a good BMI, and I don't drink much at all, so I would be OK. But I was told I had rectal cancer, commonly known as bowel cancer and that I would need surgery, a stoma and chemotherapy.

"I was 46 and hadn't expected to hear I had cancer, it was a frightening time and my sons who were age 13 and 16 at the time and I felt for them."

Following surgery, chemotherapy and a stoma reversal, Christine went back to work and decided to switch jobs from being a ward manager to specialising as a breast cancer nurse in 2019. But just prior to the Covid pandemic in March 2020, Christine was called for her first routine mammogram.