MP left wondering if family of four would become three after cancer diagnosis
Clive Jones, the Liberal Democrat MP for Wokingham, said the hardest thing he has ever had to do is tell his two teenage daughters he has cancer.
In the UK, around 390 men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, compared with around 56,800 women, according to Cancer Research UK.
Mr Jones opened up about his diagnosis as MPs debated Labour MP Scott Arthur's Rare Cancers Bill, which aims to improve access to clinical trials and research in rare cancers in the UK.
Speaking in the Commons on Friday, Mr Jones said: 'I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008, it's relatively unusual for a man. And the hardest thing that I ever had to do was to tell my two daughters, who were 13 and 14 at the time, about my diagnosis.
'It was an experience that left me wondering if our family of four was about to become a family of three. I had to explain to all of them that I would have an operation to remove a tumour, I may need another one.
'As things turned out, my cancer had spread, and I did need to have another operation. I would also have to have chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
'And that was going to take nine months out of our lives, not just mine, but the lives of my immediate family, my wider family and our friends.
'I consider myself very lucky that the treatment pathway for me was relatively clear, but that is not the case for so many rare cancers.
'The reach of cancer is an evil that is growing across our society, with nearly one in two of us projected to get cancer in our lifetime, meaning that we will all know somebody close to us, with a family or friend, that will begin what can be a very traumatic journey.
'A fight which causes your life to be taken completely out of your hands.'
During the Bill's second reading debate, Labour MP Dame Siobhain McDonagh urged the Government to 'revolutionise' the system which she said is 'bedevilled' by the status quo.
Dame Siobhain's sister, Baroness Margaret McDonagh, Labour's first female general secretary, died of glioblastoma aged 61 in June 2023.
The MP for Mitcham and Morden said: 'I'm not just sad, I am angry.'
She said 'I am angry at the NHS', adding: 'I am angry beyond belief at the NIHR, the National Institute for Health and Care Research – it should be renamed as the national institute for something that doesn't do very much at great public expense.
'All these institutions are bedevilled by wanting to carry on doing what they have always done.'
She continued: 'Why is it that the NHS – so risk-averse that they will not allow slightly alternative therapies for rare cancers – is happy that people who are really ill get on a plane and go to a different country?'
Dame Siobhain said 'thousands of people, including children' have to get on flights because 'our system will not allow the use of novel treatments'.
She added: 'I was given some hope yesterday at the proposed abolition of NHS England, because something needs to change. I don't know whether it's the right thing or the wrong thing, but we need to liberate people to do things.
'And let's face it, in the end, the only thing that changes things are people who are well, made, motivated, who are willing to take a risk.
'Beyond that, people will continue to die, will continue to have to go to other countries, will continue (to) have to spend large amounts of money.'
Since her sister's death, Dame Siobhain has campaigned for Margaret's law which aims to encourage the pharmaceutical industry to find a cure for the disease.
Elsewhere in the debate, Liberal Democrat MP Charlie Maynard spoke of his sister Georgie's diagnosis of glioblastoma.
As his sister, 46, watched on from the Commons' gallery, the Witney MP said: 'She was diagnosed with a GBM nearly two years ago.
'She is, I'd like to say, alive and well, but she is alive, and she is doing well.
'She has been brave, she has been determined, and she has been an inspiration to all of us. And it's particularly painful, as she is a mother of three, and a wife, and a daughter, and a sister.'
Mr Maynard urged Labour MPs to push the Government for change, adding: 'This, the talk in this chamber, is nice, but it's actually the actions that count.'
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