This transcript was extracted from the ‘Breast Cancer – Looking after yourself‘ video.

All right Well, hopefully you’ve all been fed and watered and connected and supported and all that good stuff. I really hope that you have. It’s so lovely to see and feel the energy today. So thank you so much for going round and chatting to all of our lovely charities around the room. So, we move on to our first speaker.

I was going to say the afternoon it is yeah, I guess the first speaker of the afternoon. Is going to be Kelly Truesdale and Kelly is the Cancer Focus counsellor, and she’s going to do a talk about looking after yourself. So over to Kelly.

And your clicker. Thank you Amy. So hello. Good afternoon. So my name’s Kelly Truesdale and I’m one of the counsellors from Cancer Focus NI and I’m based in Antrim Area Hospital. A wee bit closer, sorry if my arm moves a wee bit. I don’t mean to. So we offer talking therapy to people impacted by cancer.

So that includes the patient and their family. We work from Antrim Area Hospital. So there’s another counsellor as well at Antrim, and we provide counselling face to face, telephone, online from Monday to Friday and we also have a clinic in the Robinson Hospital in Ballymoney, so we can take referrals they’re self referrals or through a health care professional.

So a counselling service, it’s a confidential space that offers time to reflect and explore thoughts and feelings with someone outside the family circle. So have to remember have to remember my clicker here. So there we go. No. Ok, so how we feel physically can have an impact on how we feel emotionally and vice versa. You may feel many of the emotions and as they are listed, it may be a relief to say that your feelings are appropriate.

They are not abnormal reactions. These feelings are valid and deserve to be acknowledged by you and those around you.

So typical responses to a cancer diagnosis. So often denial and avoidance is a necessary and useful defense mechanism in the initial stage. So feelings of shock. It’s normal to feel shock and disbelief. Fear, safety can be threatened and people can experience fear. Worry, anxiety, low mood, depression, loneliness, a sense that no one really understands. Feeling self-conscious. Feeling anger.

Feeling angry at your body, yourself, other people, feeling angry at God. A normal response and can relate to a feeling of feeling out of control. So other feelings you may experience or other feelings and behaviours can include nervousness, sleeplessness, feeling irritable and having difficulty concentrating. It’s hard for me to manage these three things at the same time.

I thought I was getting a head set today, but anyway.

So adjustment following the cancer diagnosis. So these are just some of the responses to a diagnosis. So what’s going to happen? Who am I? How can I communicate with those I love? And will life never be the same again?

And periods of increased vulnerability. These responses may be experienced very acutely at specific times. So if you can imagine if you can see those listed. So just being diagnosed, during treatment, finishing treatment, what happens next, scan anxiety – so that feeling of anxiety when you’re due for a scan or you’re waiting for results on a scan. Noticing worrying symptoms, fear of reocurrence, poor prognosis or what happens if this reoccurs.

So a diagnosis can impact a physical, emotional, and behavioural aspect of a person.

So just an overview of some illness related pressures. So it’s important to acknowledge that while facing the pressure associated with a cancer diagnosis, people may also be facing other significant stressors such as financial issues, caring responsibilities, relationship issues. And these do not disappear with a diagnosis. So illness related pressures, pain, fatigue, trauma related to a diagnosis or treatment, relationships, trying to protect others by not speaking about it, other people’s reactions may or may not be helpful.

Others would like to help but don’t know what to say. And if you’re not good at asking for help, now’s the time to practice. So for example, on offer, do you need a lift? Would you like a pot of soup made? Would you like me to call past? It’s ok to accept offers if you don’t typically do so.

Body image, this is continually developing and through normal aging our functions change and we slowly noticed changes in our appearance, capabilities or sensations. This is gradual and therefore we can adjust and adapt our view of ourselves as it happens. However, when illness results in sudden changes, our bodies are not predictable, resulting in an impact on your emotional well-being. So, for example, starting to feel more anxious, socially avoiding situations or sexual issues, communication difficulties, sexual problems.

So cancer and it’s treatment may cause sexual problems and up to 50% of all cancer patients can be impacted. Loss of libido, fatigue, changes in bodily sensations. This can be an area people can find difficult to talk about and sometimes can make assumption. We can make assumption about a person’s sexuality and priorities and maybe don’t want to be intrusive. So just, and patients and partners may not know how to raise the topic.

Loss of health, body, body image, role, job and safety. Fear of recurrence, fear for the future and an increased sense of vulnerability when treatment ends. So what can help?

Ok, so this is not an exhaustive list and you may find there’s some suggestions that you gravitate more towards than others. So first of all, talk about it, well I’m going to say that because that’s my job and I’m I’m counsellor. So what can help? Bottling it up, talk about it, bottling it up can make things worse. So taking offers of support, this helps to reduce isolation.

Keeping in touch, you’ve got lots of ways to communicate, so phone, emails, social media, social media I suppose with caution and finding sort of the right places that you feel that are appropriate for you. Information, you’ve got your health care professionals, you have your Macmillan information and support, you’ve got other cancer support organisations that are well represented here today and having a balance with the busyness.

Setting some goals for yourself, so if you can try to visualise, do you remember a ladder that a window cleaner would have used before health and safety? So you don’t really see window cleaners ladders any more. So if typically you would have had six steps on that ladder, it’s ok maybe now if there’s 10 steps on the ladder, 12 steps on the ladder.

It’s just setting something that feels more realistic. So typically maybe before the diagnosis, if there was 6 on the ladder, your first step was going on your foot, your foot was going onto the step quite easily, it’s maybe there needs to be another step before that. Some movement, so there’s high potential to enhance wellbeing and a study of participants felt more content, awake, calmer after a period of exercise than the same period of inactivity.

And when I say a period of exercise that could be just a walk or doing something brisk in the house. Mindful practice can help you stay in the present. Compassion towards self, I suppose that’s a really important one. What would you say to a friend in a similar situation? It’s giving yourself permission to figure things out now. Eat and sleep well,

I’ll not go into that in too much detail because we’ll hear more about that this afternoon. But just to mention, care with caffeine and the impact on your sleep. So mindful practice can help with rest and sleep, can help with being mindful of unhelpful thinking patterns because our thoughts can be very powerful, but they’re not always accurate. A thought can impact how you feel physically, emotionally and how you behave.

Solving problems, I’m just aware I don’t think I’ve clicked onto my next slide. So one second. Yep. There we go. That’s us now. So solving problems, breaking things down into manageable chunks and finding out what works for me. So therapeutic cancer support services. So how Cancer Focus help.

So just as I’d talked about at the beginning. So we offer our counselling service, we also have our nurse line service, we have our family support service and our bra and swimwear fitting service. So if anyone wants any more information on the bra and swimwear fitting service, you can speak to me afterwards. I’ll be here when all the talks are finished.

And just to end on these last few slides, these are some more of the groups that we have and also just to mention as well that we have a group for under 50s, and they have a weekend retreat coming up in October. Again, if you want any more information, you can speak to me afterwards. So just a list of some of our other cancer support groups and then the services provided by our cancer prevention service.

And finally, remember that cancer can cause you to look at yourself differently and challenge you beyond what you ever thought was possible. It does not define you, and it’s a part of your life, but it’s not the whole of your life.

And thank you, and again I’m here at the end if anyone has any questions. Ok. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much to Kelly.