Susan, now 75, was first diagnosed in the 1980s
A grandmother-of-four who has been living with cancer for four decades after four separate diagnoses has said she feels “lucky to be alive” as she looks forward to “watching (her) grandchildren grow up”.
Susan Gasson, now 75, who lives in Greenwich, London, has been diagnosed with four different cancers since the 1980s: breast, cervical, thyroid and, most recently, lung cancer in 2020.
She has received most of her treatment under the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, including her latest surgery to remove the lung cancer, followed by courses of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
When the cancer returned, Susan was referred for a new clinical trial, providing hope to lung cancer patients with the HER2 gene mutation, which can stimulate excessive cell growth and division.
According to the Marsden, before this, there was no targeted therapy for people, like Susan, with this mutation, meaning treatment relied on repeated rounds of chemotherapy with significant side effects.
Now, Susan takes just one tablet a day and has seen her lung tumour shrink – with no need for further chemotherapy – and she has been able to celebrate important milestones with her family.
“I feel lucky to still be here. I’m lucky to be alive,” Susan told PA Real Life.
“I’m still here and I get to watch my grandchildren grow up.”
Susan explained that her parents and grandparents had cancer and, in her early 30s in the 1980s, she discovered a pea-sized lump in her right breast.
After seeing her GP in Hertfordshire, where she lived at the time, she was referred to the Marsden for further investigations and she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Doctors carried out a lumpectomy – an operation to remove the area of cancer and some of the surrounding breast tissue – and she required no further treatment.
“It was pea-sized, and it was described to me that when they did the lumpectomy, they found a mass of them,” Susan said.
“I was told it was a bit like porridge – lots of very tiny lumps.”
After experiencing heavy periods and being told she was anaemic, caused by a lack of iron, doctors then diagnosed her with fibroids – non-cancerous growths which develop in or around the womb.
She had a hysterectomy, a surgical procedure to remove the womb, at Watford General Hospital 1985-6, which led doctors to discover she had pre-cancerous cells.
“That was a cervical cancer, but they got it all out,” Susan explained.
“I was worried because of my young children, and I was going through a divorce, at that time, as well, from my first husband.
“It was all very stressful and traumatic, but I try not to dwell on these things – I think that helps.”
Susan credits her positive mindset for helping her through her second cancer diagnosis and said taking care of her children was a good distraction at the time.
She even returned to college to study advertising, marketing and public relations, making her the “oldest person” there in her mid-30s, but she described this as “fun” and she achieved her diploma.
While the hysterectomy triggered early menopause, she said she had regular colposcopies – tests to take a closer look at the cervix – and she had complete “faith” in her team at the Marsden.
Following this, Susan’s father died of oesophageal cancer and her mother was receiving treatment for thyroid cancer – and then Susan discovered another lump.
She continued: “I discovered I had a lump in my neck, the same way (my mother) had. It was like a small egg.”
Although initially thought to be related to the carotid artery in her neck, Susan was later diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had an appointment at the Marsden in July 1996.
She was referred for surgery at the hospital’s Chelsea site, before receiving radiotherapy at the Sutton site.
“It turned out it was thyroid cancer, so they removed my thyroid,” Susan said.
“At Sutton, they’ve got a special chamber where they zap you with radiotherapy, so you’re radioactive for about a week afterwards.
“At this point, I’d survived the other two (cancers) and, although my mother had died in the meantime of thyroid cancer, which was traumatic, I again put my faith in the hospital.”
Susan subsequently underwent genetic testing due to her cancer diagnoses and family history, and she believes she was “one of the first people to be tested”.
It was suspected she might have Cowden syndrome – a rare inherited condition associated with an increased risk of developing malignancy in many tissues – but this was later ruled out.
Speaking about the third cancer diagnosis, she said: “I’ve not let it dominate my life and I try not to dwell on it.”
Susan said she loves the theatre and opera and she joined her late second husband on cruises, where he lectured, and travelled the world with him.
She loves spending time with her children and grandchildren, enjoys “keeping busy” and is involved with the Barbican and the committee of the Guildhall Art Gallery, too.
However, her most recent and fourth cancer diagnosis in 2020 started with a cough which “wouldn’t go” – and she said it “felt like a tickle in (her) throat”.
She added: “I didn’t feel it was coming from my lungs at all at the time.”
Her GP referred her for an X-ray, which revealed an abnormal mass, and she later had an appointment at the Marsden in October 2020, leading to an official diagnosis of small cell lung cancer (SCLC).
She said this fourth diagnosis shocked her and, according to a case report from the National Library of Medicine about another patient, having four primary cancers in four different sites is “extremely rare”.
“(My local hospital) found a lump with the X-ray, so I came to the Marsden and they did the surgery to investigate,” Susan explained.
“When I came round from the surgery, they told me they had to remove quite a large chunk of my lung and do a resection of some of my windpipe as well.
“That was a shock… and this surgery was more traumatic than the other surgeries that I’d had. It was more painful, it was more debilitating.”
Along with the surgery, she underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy at the Marsden, which is celebrating its 175th anniversary this year.
She said follow-ups later revealed the cancer had returned, which led to a robotic biopsy of the area in her lung, and doctors then told Susan she was eligible for a new clinical trial.
“I was relieved because I’d had several bouts of chemotherapy before and I’d suffered very badly with that,” she said.
Susan now takes one tablet daily and has a CT scan every six weeks, and she said the cancer “hasn’t come back” and the mass in her lung has decreased in size.
She would advise other cancer patients to “stay positive” and to “keep busy”, as this helped her through her four diagnoses.
“My cancer has shrunk and the side effects have been minimal, allowing me to have a much better quality of life,” she said.
“Thanks to this trial, I got to see my first granddaughter go off to university and I hope to see her graduate.”
Susan added: “I asked my daughter for three words to describe me, she said stubborn, independent, courageous. My son said, resilient, selfless, loving.”
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