So can you hear me ok? A wee bit closer? So my name’s Kelly Truesdale and I’m one of the counsellors with Cancer Focus based in Antrim Area hospital. We we offer talking therapy to anyone that’s impacted by cancer. So that can be the patient and also your family members. So we offer our counselling sessions in Antrim Area hospital and also in the Robinson Hospital in Ballymoney.

We offer face to face sessions, telephone sessions or online sessions and referrals can be by yourself so you can do a self-referral. Or you can also have your health care professional refer for you. So counselling offers a confidential space, offering time to reflect and explore thoughts and feelings with someone outside your family circle. So how we feel physically can have an impact on how we feel emotionally, and vice versa.

You may feel many emotions and as they are listed, it may be a relief to see that your feelings are appropriate and they’re not abnormal reactions. These feelings are valid and deserve to be acknowledged by you and those around you. So typical responses, typical responses to a cancer diagnosis. So feeling shock. It’s normal to feel shock.

Feel disbelief and often in those initial stages, denial and avoidance is a necessary and useful defense mechanism in the initial stages of your diagnosis. Feeling fearful, your safety can be threatened and you can experience fear, worry, anxiety, low mood, depression, loneliness a sense that no one really understands. Feeling self-conscious. Maybe feeling angry. Angry at your body. Angry at yourself.

Angry at other people. Angry at God. A normal response and can relate to a sense of feeling out of control. Other feelings and behaviours can include feeling nervous, sleeplessness, feeling irritable, or having difficulty concentrating.

So adjusting to your cancer diagnosis, these are some responses to a diagnosis. What’s going to happen to me? Who am I? How can I communicate with those I love? and life will never be the same again.

And sometimes people would mention periods of increased vulnerability. These responses may be experienced very acutely at specific times. So for example, when you’ve just been diagnosed, during treatment, finishing treatment, what happens now? Anxiety around your scans, waiting for results, worrying about your symptoms, fear of recurrence, poor prognosis or recurrence. That was a wee a bit of a delay in the click there.

Sorry. Sorry about that. So a diagnosis can impact the physical, emotional and behavioural aspect of a person.

So just an overview of some illness related pressures. It’s important to acknowledge that whilst facing the pressure associated with a cancer diagnosis, people may also be taking other, have other significant stressors for example financial issues, caring responsibilities or relationship issues. And these don’t disappear with a diagnosis.

So you may also have noticed that you experience pain, fatigue, trauma, trauma related to having a diagnosis or your treatment, your relationships, trying to protect others by not speaking about it, other people’s reactions may or may not be helpful. And other often people would like to help but they don’t know what to say. If you’re not good at asking for help, maybe now’s the time to practise. Communication difficulties. Your body image. This is continually developing, through normal aging our functions change and we slowly notice changes in our appearance, capabilities or sensations, and this is a gradual process.

Therefore, we can adjust and adapt our view of ourselves as it happens. However, when illness results in a sudden change, our bodies are not predictable and the result is an impact on your emotional well-being. So, for example, feeling anxious, socially avoiding situations and sexual issues, loss of health, body image, role, job security, safety, fear of recurrence. So sexual problems, cancer and its treatment may cause sexual problems, and up to 50% of all cancer patients are impacted.

So that can include a loss of libido, fatigue, changes in bodily sensations. And this can be an area where people find difficult to talk. And professionals can sometimes make assumptions about a person’s sexuality and priorities and they don’t want to be intrusive. And patient partners may not know where do I go to raise this topic? So just as Amy had mentioned as well, at the beginning, we have a sexual and intimacy person working for Cancer Focus.

So if anyone would like to make contact, if they want to leave their details with me afterwards, I can pass those on.

Where did I get to? So, yes. So increased sense of vulnerability when your treatment ends. So now, how to cope. So what may help? This isn’t an exhaustive list and some suggestions you may gravitate towards more than others. So talk about it, bottling it up usually doesn’t help. And of course I would say talking about it because that’s my job.

Keeping in touch, thinking about, you know, phone calls, emails, social media. Just approaching things with caution. Information that you’re given. So when you think about information or think, Frances, you had mentioned earlier about sort of trying to not look at Google. Sometimes Google can lead you down a whole rabbit hole of information. It’s just making sure you have good quality information.

So that would come from your health care professional, Macmillan Information and Support and other cancer support organisations. Keeping busy but not too busy. So when you think if you try to imagine that a ladder at the side of your house, so a ladder that a window cleaner would use. I don’t think actually they use ladders anymore, I don’t for health and safety reasons.

But even you think about a ladder you would use for maintenance. So if you could visualise a ladder that’s sitting in front of you and typically you would do something in maybe 4-6 steps. Ok. So just imagine that you’re trying to do trying to reach that goal in 4-6 steps. Visualise another one beside it where there could be an extra couple of steps in there that might make it more manageable.

So having to reset your goals so that you can still get things done, but it’s maybe just taking a wee bit of extra wee bit of extra time.

Planning rewards and being good to yourself. I think that’s something that not many of us are very good at. I’m not sure, but it’s just making sure as well that you’re mindful of that.

Developing new interests, developing new interests, hobbies or picking up old ones. So that could be that could be relaxation. Maybe some movement, movement has a high potential to enhance your wellbeing. And actually, a study has shown that participants felt more content, awake and calmer after a period of exercise or that word “housework”, walking than the same period of inactivity.

So mindful practice can also help you stay in the present, because I think sometimes as human beings we just tend to keep looking back to think of what I used to do or looking forward, when will I be able to do this again? Having compassion towards yourself, so try to think what would you say to a friend? So a friend in the same situation, what would you say to them?

Eat and sleep well. And I know this is a topic that we’ll cover later on this afternoon. So I just briefly wanted to say, just to be mindful of the impact of your treatment. And taking some care with caffeine. So the impact on your sleep, mindful practice can help with your rest and sleep. And just to be mindful of unhelpful thinking patterns, because our thoughts are so powerful but they’re not always accurate. So a thought can impact how you feel physically, emotionally and how you behave. So just to be mindful of that again. Then it’s finding out what works for you. So how can Cancer Focus help?

So we have we have a list of our cancer support services. So just by finishing on some of the services provided by Cancer Focus, some may be helpful to you and some may be helpful to others that you know of. So our Nurseline service is available Monday, Wednesday, Friday morning. Our counselling service again it’s a self-referral or through your health care professional.

The Family Support Service. So for anyone who has, children under the age of 21 or for grandchildren, we can help with those difficult conversations around “How do I explain my diagnosis to my child?”. The bra and the Bra and Swimwear Fitting Service, now that’s available in Belfast, but also in the Robinson Hospital in Ballymoney. We have Art Therapy groups and we also have a Patient Driving Service.

And then these are just some of our support groups. So those support groups actually the one the My Cancer Journey, it starts on Tuesday and it will run for five Tuesdays. So that’s looking at your diagnosis and you know what your experience has been with other people that maybe have had a similar experience. So that that’s in Eglinton Avenue which is in Belfast on Tuesday for five weeks from half ten to half 12 and if anyone wants to put their name down, they can just speak to me afterwards.

So some of our cancer prevention services that we offer as well. Again, if you want any more information, just come over and speak to me afterwards. And then finally, remember, the cancer may cause you to look at yourself differently and challenge you beyond what you ever thought was possible. It doesn’t define you. It’s part of your life, but it’s not your whole life.

So thank you so much. Ok thank you. Ok thank you so much.