Royal Navy Commander and breast cancer sufferer Jill Stellingworth believes chemotherapy treatment was one of the most "horrific" experiences of her life, writes Victoria Owen.

And now, doctors who care for patients like Cdr Stellingworth are being invited to take part in a technological programme which helps them understand what their patients have to go through regularly.

In six months, she endured 12 shots of a three chemical cocktail pumped into her blood stream. Although she carried on working at her base in Caversfield, near Bicester, twice a month she was totally knocked out by the powerful medication to combat her cancer. Cdr Stellingworth always received her drugs on a Thursday and by the following Saturday, the fatigue would kick in.

She said: "I would get out of bed and nearly fall over. I couldn't walk or keep balance. It was horrific. I told people not to come round or even phone me because I just wanted to sleep. I needed to be completely by myself.

"On Sunday, I wouldn't be much better, but I was well enough to go to work on the Monday. I thought I was alright in the office, but now colleagues have told me that I lacked attention, even though I was trying to fight it and get on top of the treatment."

Unlike other cancer and treatment symptoms, doctors find severe fatigue very difficult to quantify. While many people lose their hair or feel physical nausea, exhaustion is often something cancer patients are told to grin and bare.

Caused when the disease or the chemotherapy itself brings on anaemia a lack of oxygen-carrying proteins in the blood, fatigue leaves people extremely tired, breathless, dizzy and unable to concentrate.

Charity CancerBACUP recently brought its In My Steps Campaign to Oxford. Medics spend 15 minutes in a computer-image house while suffering severe fatigue.

Wearing special computerised helmet and gloves and using foot pedals, they were told to do everyday tasks, like climb the stairs, answer the door and make a cup of tea. Cdr Stellingworth was diagnosed in 1996 and as well as the chemotherapy, she had radiotherapy and operations to remove the lump in her breast and her lymph nodes. She believes inflicting fatigue on doctors will only do good for patients about to go through the same gruelling treatment she has endured.

She said: "My doctors were amazed that I carried on working and all of them just seemed to accept that fatigue was a normal part of the process.

"They were sympathetic, but didn't give me anything to combat it. I had to find my own ways to tackle it, like eating for Britain before treatment, so that my iron levels were up."

CancerBACUP hopes the simulated fatigue will help doctors to start empathising with their patients.

Clinical oncologist Dr Elaine Sugden, of the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, took part in the virtual reality experience, which docked at the city's John Radcliffe Hospital on Thursday. She said: "It felt as though I was walking round with huge lead boots on. It was very frustrating and it took hours to get anywhere.

Hopefully, in the future we will find out more about fatigue because things like vomiting are over and done with, but this tends to linger on."

Cancer information nurse specialist Catherine Teague said: Unfortunately, this has not been fully appreciated in the past by carers and doctors.

We hope that the CancerBACUP In My Steps virtual reality programme will serve to increase awareness."