Latest news with #Guy's
Daily Mirror
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
'I had double mastectomy after rare cancer gene test saved my mum's life'
Grace Burton made the life-altering decision after her mother and aunt were both diagnosed with breast cancer, with the 28-year-old opting for a double mastectomy as a preventative measure EastEnders actress Kara Tointon has bravely revealed she has undergone a double mastectomy and fallopian tube removal following a gene test - seven years after losing her mum. On Wednesday, the 41-year-old shared the news that she carried the BRCA gene, saying in her Instagram video: 'You may have heard of the BRCA genes 1 and 2 and as a carrier it means I am at a greater risk of both breast and ovarian cancer.' The Essex-born actress admitted that she wanted to take the genetic test as far back as 2018 when her mother Carol was undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer. Sadly, Kara's mum passed away from ovarian cancer the following year. Grace Burton, 28, also made the life-altering decision to undergo a preventative double mastectomy in October last year after learning she carried the BRCA1 gene mutation, like Kara. Following in her mother and aunt's footsteps, the corporate finance consultant from Bromley in South East London, decided she would rather undergo the procedure than risk developing the life-altering condition in the future. "I think I'm lucky that I know I have the gene, and I can do something about it," she says. "My mum and my aunt went through mastectomies when they'd already been diagnosed. By the time it came to me and my preventative surgery, our attitude was more, 'let's get on with it', I didn't get too emotional about it." Initial dismissal Her aunt, Sally Widgen, 52, was diagnosed with breast cancer in her mid-thirties. That diagnosis sparked concern in the family, but doctors initially dismissed the idea of a genetic link. "My mum was so worried because of her young age, but doctors said it's not genetic because my aunt was the first in the family to get it," Grace recalls. "Mum was 45 and would have had to wait five years for a mammogram so she paid for one privately and they found a tiny lump that was so deep which she would have never picked up through self-checking. She realised at that point that it was probably genetic." Further investigation revealed a pattern of breast cancer on her mother's paternal side. Grace's mum, Sue Burton, 56, had been estranged from that side of the family since childhood. Genetic testing confirmed that both Sue and Sally carried the BRCA1 mutation. Grace then learned in her late teens that she might carry the gene herself. "I went off to university and had the test done when I'd finished at about 21. When it was confirmed I had the BRCA1 gene I spoke to the team at Guy's who said I would have yearly MRI's. They wanted to wait a few years before doing anything surgical and said they wouldn't do anything before I turned 25." In 2023, after marrying her long-term partner, Tom Cheesman, 27, a chartered wealth manager, Grace decided the time was right. "I didn't want any issues with scarring or how the dress fitted or to be feeling stressed about recovering for a certain date," she said. After the wedding, she moved forward with the surgery, which is offered for free on the NHS. "When they sit you down and you get your risk results and it's edging towards the wrong side of 50 percent you think, 'let's just do the op'. It felt like the right time." 'Boob-voyage' Grace's support network rallied around her. A friend even threw her a cheeky, boob-themed farewell bash. "My husband did speak with the girls who I had told and they threw me a surprise 'boob voyage' as they called it! Basically just a little party with everything boob themed, including 'pin the nipples on the boobs', 'booby bingo', lots of puns floating around!" "October seemed like a nice time to do it. I could sit around in baggy clothes and hibernate a bit." Surprisingly, she was discharged on the same day. "I wasn't expecting that. I think I was a little bit cocky in the run up in terms of the recovery time. But I soon realised when they say you can't sit yourself up afterwards, you really can't! I couldn't lift the kettle for a week or two." Tom played a vital role in her recovery. "In our relationship, there was definitely an adjustment period. You're constantly aware of it. From a recovery point of view he was the one emptying the drains and checking the wounds and changing the dressings." The surgery was performed at Guy's Hospital, with two surgeons operating on each breast simultaneously. Grace opted for implants, meaning she was able to keep the same size breasts as before. "I was on the operating table for four hours. Guys do it over the muscle with silicone implants. The surgery was covered by the NHS, including the reconstruction and if in the future they need to be changed, that will be covered.' Grace admits she didn't seek much outside support ahead of the operation. "I didn't speak to anyone before the surgery because my mum had been through it, and my aunt. I had seen it first hand already." Six months on, she is still adjusting and her implants are still taking some time to get used to. "I can feel the edge of them and they can be a bit uncomfortable. I'm also realising although they are the same size, things don't fit the same. It still looks different. I'm now at the point where I'm accepting what it's going to look like." She's currently on her first post-op holiday in Florida. "I'll be in swimwear for the first time. I don't know how things will look or feel like. It'll be a learning curve. I might need more surgery to maintain them." Grace admits that the surgery does come with difficult trade-offs when it comes to having a family in the future. "At this stage, with the double mastectomy, you can't breastfeed but I'd be a better mother not being able to breastfeed than I would be in a hospital bed." Careful consideration For those going through a similar decision, she urges careful consideration. "You could stick with monitoring, do nothing about it, or jump in and do it straight away. It's a bit confusing. The surgery itself is terrifying but the alternative is worse.' Like Kara, who is an ambassador for the gynaecological cancer charity the Eve Appeal, Grace is keen to raise awareness. She has become an active advocate, participating in show-and-tell sessions where she models her reconstructed breasts to support others considering surgery. "There's someone with no recon, someone with a DIEP recon and me with immediate recon with implants. "At the last session I was the only model under 35 and the other young women really gravitated towards me. I'm showing off someone else's work. I've kept my nipples but the boobs are fake, they're not really mine anymore so maybe that makes it easier." She's also involved in an educational portal being developed by Guy's Hospital and is preparing for a trek with the charity CoppaFeel. "I posted about my surgery on Instagram and six or seven people I hadn't spoken to for years got in touch with lots of questions – some of them were in a similar position but too scared to get tested for the gene." Grace's mother remains her number one supporter having undergone the surgery herself. "She still comes to all the appointments with me. She still goes to the support groups – more for me than for her – to find out about any new research developments and things like that." Anyone seeking information or support can speak to Breast Cancer Now's expert nurses by calling our free, confidential helpline on 0808 800 6000
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Maj Gen James Crook, RAMC scientist who studied the biological impact of nuclear tests
Major General James Crook, who has died aged 101, took part in a major British nuclear test programme in the course of a distinguished career in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). In 1956, Crook went to South Australia as one of a group of scientists working on the biological problems of atomic explosions. Maralinga – the name means 'Place of Thunder' – is on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert about 700 miles north-west of Adelaide. It was covered with grass, flowering shrubs and trees, and there was plenty of animal life, including lizards and snakes, rabbits, kangaroos, emus and parrots. Scientific and recreational facilities had been established, a large runway and aerodrome built and a 100 ft tower constructed at the end of a long road leading from Maralinga village. In this series of weapons tests, four rounds were planned – two from the tower, one from the ground and an air-drop from a Valiant bomber. Crook's task was to put out items of medical equipment at varying distances from the tower. Some were placed on the surface, while others, including foodstuffs, were buried to assess the effect of ionising radiation. A further task was to place articulated dummies in battle-dress to calculate the dynamic effects of the blast wave on human beings. Also exposed to the bomb were trucks, light vehicles, aircraft, tanks, guns, radar and other military equipment. Blast detectors, heat detectors and gamma neutron detectors were among a large assortment of scientific instruments laid out to measure the effects of the bomb. The area was a scene of great activity. Bulldozers, drillers, graders and mobile cranes raised clouds of dust. Several times, Crook found himself looking over his shoulder at the tower and wondering whether atomic bombs ever exploded prematurely. The first round was to be exploded from the tower. The fireball was expected to come into contact with the ground and the radioactive fall-out, affecting the first 100 miles downwind, was expected to be high. Firing, therefore, could only be permitted when the wind was in exactly the right direction and of the right strength. Crook and other service officers watched the explosion on a hill within a few miles of the tower. He wrote afterwards: 'A tremendously bright, white-blueish flash illuminated the area. It was like a magnesium flare and outshone the sun. An orange fireball rose extraordinarily quickly, attached to the ground by the mushroom-stalk cloud. The roar and the intensely hot pressure wave came several seconds later.' James Cooper Crook was born at Prestatyn, north Wales, on March 19 1923. He won an open scholarship to Worksop College before going to Guy's Hospital on a junior science scholarship. His father, Francis, had served in the First World War before going to Guy's, and his grandfather, Sir Edwin Cooper Perry, was Superintendent of Guy's from 1897 to 1920 and vice-chancellor of London University. In 1946 he was commissioned into the RAMC as a National Serviceman and was serving in North Africa during Britain's severe winter of 1947-48. A soldier's life seemed preferable to that sort of experience and he decided to make a career in the regular Army. After three years in Cyrenaica Province, Libya, he returned to England to begin his training in pathology at the Queen Alexandra's Military Hospital at Millbank in London. It was during the period 1954 to 1957, when he was the Army medical liaison officer to the Medical Research Council in the radiobiology unit at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell in Oxfordshire that he attended the nuclear tests at Maralinga. Early in the morning, on the day following the explosion of the first round, he drove to the health control checkpoint, where a complete decontamination centre had been established. He changed into protective clothing, including rubber boots, overalls and a respirator. He was given a personal dose-rate meter and walked to the 'dirty' car park. There he collected a 'dirty' jeep and drove towards the bomb site through a scene of devastation – with blackened earth, charred and flattened trees, and fires burning in vehicles and other target items. As he retrieved the food targets, the needle on his dosimeter was recording several roentgens per hour. He wasted no time in completing the task and returned to the centre to undress and shower. This was followed by rigorous monitoring to confirm that he was completely free of contamination. There followed postings to Cyprus during the EOKA Emergency, and to the David Bruce Military Hospital in Malta. He was the RAMC specialist and pathologist at the Chemical Defence Establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire from 1960 to 1963. After a posting to Eastern Command Laboratory, he moved to the Ministry of Defence. He hated having to wear a city suit, a bowler hat and carry an umbrella, and he jumped on the hat when he finished the appointment. After five years in command of the British Military Hospital at Munster in West Germany, he returned to the MoD – this time without a bowler hat. It was his final appointment. He was promoted to major general and finished as director of Army Pathology. In 1981 he retired from the Army and worked as a civilian medical practitioner at the Army Blood Supply Depot in Aldershot , where he became known as 'the Bleeding General'. In retirement in Cornwall, he loved travelling and, having loaded his family into their veteran Morris Oxford, he would drive across France to Bavaria for camping holidays. He also enjoyed researching the family history. In 2023 he received the British Nuclear Tests Medal and wore it at the last Remembrance Service he attended. James Crook married, in 1950, Ruth Bellamy, who was serving with Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps. She died in 2015 and he is survived by two daughters and a son. Major General James Crook, born March 19 1923, died March 16 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
The Guardian
20-03-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
David Landon obituary
My father, David Landon, who has died aged 88, was a pioneer in the use of high-resolution electron microscopes to improve the understanding of neuromuscular diseases such as multiple sclerosis, and established a state-of-the-art electron microscopy facility that provided diagnostic services for several London hospitals that ran from the mid-1970s onwards. Specialising in exploring the microscopic structure and function of nerves and muscles, his early published papers describing structures involved in nerve conduction called the nodes of Ranvier were the start of a fruitful research career that used electron microscopes in diagnostic services for neuromuscular conditions. Born in London, David was the son of the novelist and screenwriter Christopher Landon and his Australian wife, Isabella (nee Campbell). When the second world war broke out, Isabella took three-year-old David to Australia to escape the blitz, and they returned in 1945. Inspired by his biology teacher at Lancing college in Sussex, David developed a fascination with zoology, catching butterflies and watching birds as an escape from the tedium of boarding school and tensions at home in Norfolk following his parents' divorce. During medical training at Guy's hospital medical school in London, he met Karen Poole, a fellow student, and they married in 1960. After qualifying in 1959, David became a house physician and outpatients officer in the Guy's casualty department, senior house officer at Paddington hospital and then a lecturer in anatomy at Guy's before joining a new Medical Research Council research group in applied neurobiology at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London. He intended to stay only a few years, but remained there for the rest of his professional life, and over the years held posts at the hospital as senior lecturer in applied neurobiology (1964-77), consultant in morbid anatomy (1974-2001), professor of neurocytology (1991-2001) and as dean of the Institute of Neurology (1987-95), an adjacent facility that stands within the faculty for brain sciences of University College London. His only diversions away from working at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery came in 1975 when he spent three months setting up an electron microscopy facility at the University of Lagos in Nigeria, and in 1983 when he went to Bombay (now Mumbai), India, to train up 40 technicians on electron microscope use in relation to leprosy research. On his retirement in 2001 he was made a freeman of the Pewterers Company, in recognition of his work with the company's charitable trust. David was a generous mentor and a kind, loving family man. He loved his garden and developed a talent for silversmithing during retirement. He is survived by Karen, their three children, James, Christopher and me, five grandchildren, Heidi, Jack, Felix, Jason and Wilfred, and his brother, Nicholas.
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Couple help NHS mark 75 years of cataract surgery
The NHS is celebrating 75 years of cataract surgery, an operation which helps restore vision. The operation involves removing a lens - a small transparent disc inside the eye - that has become cloudy and replacing it with one made out of acrylic plastic. Without the operation, the cloudy vision can lead to blurry vision and eventually blindness. Roughly half of those over the age of 60 have some degree of cataracts. Since it was first offered at St Thomas' Hospital in 1950, nearly one billion cataract surgeries are estimated to have taken place across the world. One couple from south-east London who have undertaken the procedure is John and Freda McBean. "I am already feeling better and can see more brightness than I could see before," said Mr McBean, a retired deputy teacher from Chislehurst. About 10 years ago, he tore his retina and during the procedure to fix it, the surgeon noticed a cataract was starting to form. Over the last five years, Mr McBean's vision deteriorated leading him to have cataract surgery on his left eye in February to remove the cloudy lens. He said he was not nervous as his wife had the operation on both eyes last year. Mrs McBean, 72, said her vision was now excellent, and that she only needed reading glasses for very fine print. The retired primary school teacher said: "The surgery went beautifully and the experience was unbelievable." Speaking of his own procedure, Mr McBean said: "I couldn't believe it when I was told I was one of the patients getting surgery around the anniversary. "I feel like I know the surgery so I wasn't nervous." He added: "It was amazing and I am absolutely in awe of the team. "It's amazing that over the course of my lifetime this operation has been finessed, and it's nice to be a part of the history of the hospital." Sir Harold, the creator of the procedure, made his medical breakthrough after treating a Spitfire pilot who had splinters of acrylic in his eye. He noticed that unlike most other foreign material, the eye did not reject this type of plastic. At the time, Sir Harold's invention was considered radical and was initially resisted by much of the medical profession - but over time it has become the most common eye operation in the world. Today, the surgery takes only 15 to 30 minutes per eye, and patients are discharged within hours. To celebrate 75 years since its invention, ophthalmologists at Guy's and St Thomas' unveiled a portrait of Sir Harold Ridley gifted to the hospital by the Ridley Eye Foundation. Dr Sancy Low, the consultant ophthalmic surgeon who performed Mr McBean's surgery, said: "The story of Sir Harold Ridley's journey is an incredible reminder of how we can bring light to the world, changing the lives of John, Freda and millions worldwide." Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to Cancer survivor reunited with life-saving optician Woman, 88, gets bionic eye implant Hundreds of cataract surgeries in 'Covid catch-up' Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
