TWO Bolton cancer survivors are furious at comments made by controversial Dr Vernon Coleman in the Bolton Evening News last week.

The forecaster caused a wave of controversy with his predictions for our health for the next ten years.

"Chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery will continue to be as ineffective as ever" he said - but without this kind of treatment Anne Gough and Sandra Westwood wouldn't be here today.

The two brave mothers have both beaten a form of breast cancer which only strikes one in 1,000 sufferers.

It is an aggressive strain, which required both women to have chemotherapy, a mastectomy and radiotherapy.

They came through it and enjoy life to the full again, but Anne, aged 53 from Heaton, and Sandra, 48, from Bromley Cross, still have to go for regular check-ups.

Neither woman likes Dr Coleman's negative attitude - as anyone with cancer needs to stay positive in their fight with the killer disease.

"If you aren't positive, you just let it swamp you," said Sandra.

Discovering they had breast cancer was a shock to which the two women reacted in almost opposite ways.

"I fainted," said Sandra, a technology teacher at Withins School, who was diagnosed in June, 1998.

"All the blood drained out of my face. You don't believe it, you think it happens to other people.

"But if I didn't have treatment, I would have 18 months left to live at most.

"They said: 'You might as well take a year off work.'

"I was devastated because it turns your whole world upside down."

Anne's response to the diagnosis back in July 1997 was radically different.

"I was absolutely furious," the Bolton College lecturer recalled.

"I thought: 'How dare this thing invade me'. I used to talk to it and tell it to bugger off."

The chemotherapy involved six months of having a pump put in the chest, which drip-fed a tailor-made cocktail of drugs. During this time, the women were at home, but once a month they had an appointment at Christie Hospital in Manchester.

Said Anne: "When the doctor came to put the line in (for the chest pump), he said: 'How do you want to fight this?'

"And I said: 'I will fight it all the way.' So he said: 'Right, we will poison the b*****d!' They aren't po-faced!"

She continued: "I lost all my body hair in two weeks.

"My hairdresser came and gave me a number one, and we had a bottle of wine.

"That's taking control of your illness."

Once the tumour was reduced by the drugs, they both had a mastectomy, followed by radiotherapy to "mop up anything that might hang around", said Anne.

It is because of this first-hand experience of cancer that Sandra, a mother of an 18-year-old daughter and son aged 15, is angry about Dr Coleman's comments.

"I don't know how anybody could say they haven't made any inroads into cancer treatment," she said.

"They haven't found a cure but we wouldn't be here if we hadn't had the kind of treatment we had.

"We want people to know you can get through cancer."

"Cancer care has come such a long way," Anne, who has a 27-year-old daughter, agreed.

"The working together of Bolton breast cancer unit and Christie was wonderful and the support is fantastic."

Anne's mother, Louisa Grice, had cancer of the womb 19 years ago.

Within days of visiting her doctor, she was in hospital for an operation, followed by injections until she was given the all-clear.

She said about Dr Coleman: "I think he's silly.

"It's a shame for the people who are just going through it."

Sandra agreed: "It's absolutely devastating for people who have to cope with it - it's soul-destroying."

And Anne said: "I wanted to throttle Dr Coleman when I read his article.

"How dare he say I don't have a chance!" HOSPITAL ANGER AT 'IRRESPONSIBLE' COMMENTS ANGELA Roden, appeals director at Christie Hospital in Manchester, said Dr Coleman's comments on cancer are "a misrepresentation of the facts".

"I think it's irresponsible for posed experts speaking to make such sweeping statements about cancer," she said.

Angela explained success rates have soared as a result of advancements in drugs and treatment, with modern medicine only targeting the tumour and not the healthy tissue.

She said that testicular cancer, for instance, used to be incurable for nine out of ten cases. Now, nine out of ten men do get better. These figures are identical for leukaemia in children.

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