Doctors failed to diagnose my cancer, says Duke's ex-girlfriend
Ms Stark, 46, said she made repeated trips to different Harley Street surgeries and hospitals in the capital but was only told she had cancer by a doctor she saw on August 2 in the US, where she is now being treated.
Two weeks earlier in Britain, faulty X-ray equipment meant a mammogram examination had to be done nine times - and when the biopsy results came through doctors said her lump was “not even pre-cancerous.”
In an interview with Hello! magazine, the former actress turned photographer spoke of her battle with breast cancer and the terror she felt just before she had a mastectomy operation.
“I went to several hospitals and up and down Harley Street. They told me the lump should come out at some point but that there was no urgency,” she said.
“When they came to give me the pre-op needle for the anaesthetic I just screamed. They were trying to insert a line into a vein in my hand and I was terrified.”
Ms Stark explained how her Buddhist spirituality and the support of her close friends and five-year-old daughter, Tatiana, helped her come to terms with the illness and the loss of a breast.
The magazine said Ms Stark has told the Duke the news and Ms Stark praised Andrew as “a very good and supportive friend.”
The pair have remained in contact since their relationship in the early 1980s ended and Andrew is godfather to Ms Stark’s daughter.
Despite the fact that repeated visits to medics in London did not lead to a correct diagnosis, Ms Stark said she did not feel the British medical profession had “failed” her.
“But then I don’t like to think angry thoughts. It’s not good for me. When I returned to London I would have had the lump taken out. But by then, of course, I suppose it might have been to late.”
Ms Stark now faces a period of chemotherapy and while the short- term prognosis is good, her doctors remain cautious about the long term as the cancer has spread to her lymph nodes.
But Ms Stark told the magazine the illness had completely changed her life and that she was determined to regain her health so she could see her daughter grow up.
