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The Cornwall Cancer Café podcast with Matthew Clarke and welcome to the podcast this week
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and we also have in the studio Emma Coombe. Hello. Thanks to the National Lottery Community
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Fund for supporting this podcast. So this week we are talking two topics again, but
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linked through one person. The first thing is breast cancer. So we have been talking
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to Lesley Chandler who lives in West Cornwall and I actually went to one of my favourite
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haunts which is in Camborne. It’s Miss Molly’s. They’ve been brilliant, wonderfully supportive
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to me and we went and had a coffee there and then we used my studio, mobile studio.
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I sat in the car and recorded. Emma, have you had friends, family, people who’ve been
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through breast cancer? Yes, I have actually. When I was first diagnosed with my melanoma
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and I had to go for my first appointments, a very good friend of mine who is living
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with breast cancer offered to be my plus one. So she came along to my first few
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appointments and because she’d sort of been there, done that, she knew the questions
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to ask and she knew how to ask them. She also wrote down all of the information for
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me and sent me the information so that I could read it back. So yes, a very
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good friend of mine is, she’s five years since having the original diagnosis of breast
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cancer, but always living with it.
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And it is incredibly common for people to get checked out, but not everyone does
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get checked out as often. A lot of people, a lot of women are not happy or
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comfortable about going and getting checked out and that is a concern,
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isn’t it? It is. So I’m 54, I’ll give you my personal experience of this
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So when I turned 50, I thought, should I have had a letter? Should I have had an
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appointment by now? So I had a look into it a little bit and I think it’s
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between the ages of 50 and 53 you get called up and indeed in my 53rd year
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I got called up. So I went to the breast screening unit in Three
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Milestone and it was really easy. I turned up in my car, went in, they
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took my details, got undressed, they were very gentle, they explained
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everything that was going to happen. I had the procedure, if you like,
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and then heard quite quickly because I’d quite recently been diagnosed with
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the melanoma. So they put a little rush on my results and it all came
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back clear thankfully for me. But yeah, if you’re a lady and you’re
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over the age of 53 and you haven’t been called up for your mammogram yet,
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go and ask your doctor. It is also important to say that men can get
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breast cancer too. Yeah, actually, funny enough, I was watching Call the
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Midwife last night and it was the episode with a man with breast
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cancer. So I thought, well, this is just bizarre, isn’t it, watching
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this and now having this conversation. But they sort of covered how it
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was more difficult for a man because, you know, breast cancer for
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a man, they have less breast tissue. So men would probably not expect
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to get it. But it only takes one cell to go rogue.
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Have you never heard of moobs? Man boobs?
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Yeah, I think we’ve all heard of moobs.
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I have to say that during my treatment I had quite a few steroids
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and I think I’ve grown, well, I know I have grown moobs to a
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certain extent. And, you know, I think, God, Jim, what’s this I’ve got going on here?
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Yeah, well, I think a lot of men would probably enjoy having moobs.
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OK, so let’s first meet Leslie Chandler and find out about how she
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got her diagnosis.
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It’s strange, really, because the diagnosis for breast cancer comes
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after a mammogram, but a mammogram comes after a referral from your GP.
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And in my case, the referral from the GP came because of a conversation
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on the phone with my daughter.
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How did that conversation go?
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She calls me Mrs. 20 questions because I’m always curious about most
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things in life. And I had noticed that I’d got this sort of
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indentation, not a lump, which is what girls and women are trained to look for
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from a very early age.
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And I said, what does it mean when you’ve got this indentation?
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And she just very calmly said she is a doctor and just very calmly said,
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oh, that’s that’s tethering, that’s a red flag for cancer.
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So she said, tell your friend to go and make an appointment with her GP,
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at which point I went quiet.
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And then she said, it’s not you, is it?
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So I said, yeah.
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So she then said, see your GP in the morning.
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And the rest was just history.
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Well, it’s good that your daughter’s a doctor.
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Yes, it did help because I don’t think I would have gone to see my GP.
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I’m beyond the age of regular screening, which for women is between 50 and 70.
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But I did make an appointment.
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I did try and make an appointment last year and was told that I wasn’t due
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until this month, March 2026.
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And they said, come back and see us in March.
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Well, here I am in March and I’ve had a mastectomy because of three tumors.
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What are some of the questions you’ve asked on your journey so far?
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Hmm, I actually haven’t asked many questions
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because I’ve just gone with the flow, which is what a lot of cancer
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patients tend to say, because in the early stages, everything is two weeks.
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It’s two weeks before you get an appointment
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at the Mermaid Center in Cornwall, two weeks after that, etc.
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Two weeks after that and then surgery and then two weeks after that.
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So I’ve not really had much of an opportunity to ask many questions.
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And I haven’t begun cancer treatment yet.
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I’m still recovering from surgery, which was six weeks ago today.
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OK, so despite the fact that
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you’ve had breast cancer and I’ve had a completely different type of cancer,
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a blood cancer, non Hodgkin’s lymphoma, there is one aspect of our experience,
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which we’ve ascertained is very similar, isn’t it?
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It’s about both of us being cancer patients and living on our own.
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How has that affected you?
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Well, you sit and think, how am I going to cope after surgery?
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Will I need looking after?
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Will I be able to be as independent as I was before?
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Will there be a period
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before I can look after myself and do basic everyday things?
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It’s a fear of loss of independence, I think,
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and needing to depend upon people,
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which I’d never really had to consider before.
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But you found there were lots of people you could depend on
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and some of them you didn’t realise were the ones that would come forward.
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Well, I was absolutely astounded by offers of help.
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Offers of soup, stews, preparing food, coming round to the house, helping me.
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Did I need help with housework?
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Did I need a lift to clinic?
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All sorts of things that just take you
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as you’re going with the flow and just happen.
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And these friends were there.
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And people I had not known very well were ringing me up to ask me how I was.
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And I was absolutely bowled over by the fact that these were friends
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I didn’t even know I had.
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I found there are friends that I didn’t know I had as well that came forward.
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Some of them I knew very loosely,
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but they came forward and did those sort of things for me as well.
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And there were also some which might have been, you know,
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in my list of people I’d have thought would have done that, but didn’t.
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But, you know, it doesn’t matter.
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It’s the fact that there were some people there out there to support you.
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Yes, because I don’t have family, really close family in Cornwall.
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My daughter lives and works in Yorkshire now.
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And I haven’t seen her since I’ve had surgery.
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So my friendship networks were extremely important to me.
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And everything that I’m involved with or have been involved with
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seemed to throw up friends.
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And I cannot underestimate the value
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and the need of support from friends at a time like this.
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As a person living on their own,
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did you get that assessed at any point during your experience so far?
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I think there is a general assumption
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a general medical assumption that there will be someone at home to look after you,
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whether that be a family member or a friend.
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And that is not always the case.
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I fortunately had a good friend
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here in Camborne that I went to stay with on discharge.
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But thereafter, I was on my own.
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Lesley Chandler there talking about living on your own
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and getting through day to day with cancer.
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So I’ve done that. And you’ve done that.
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I have just listening to what she was saying about having the support after surgery.
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I was actually lucky at the time of surgery that my son was living at home with me.
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But he was planning to be away.
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And then I got home from the hospital and he took one look at me
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and cancelled all of his plans because he could see that I needed him.
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I needed his help, even if it was just for him to be there,
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to give me some painkillers or to put some food in front of me.
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I was absolutely not capable of doing anything when I first had my surgery.
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The network of friends, that’s that’s a really interesting one as well,
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because I had a number of friends, again, friends,
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loose friends who stepped up and said, can I help?
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Or stepped up and said, oh, I’ve got lived experience of this.
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Friends that just wanted to say, you know, I’m here.
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There was also friends that obviously it scared the bejesus out of them.
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Forgive that phrase, but it scared them so much that they needed
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to take a step away. And that’s also OK.
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I don’t know, how did you how did you find it?
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Well, my mother, she lives in Dorset.
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So at the most needy points of my experience,
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she came and stayed with me.
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Also, when she couldn’t be down here, particularly straight
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off to my stem cell transplant, I was more or less in isolation
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in Lohan Ward for two weeks.
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It was great because we went on, as was then Skype online.
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And we just were even when I could barely
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I barely had the energy to talk or do anything at all.
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She was just there on the computer there
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and not pushing me to talk or anything, but she was just there.
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And that was really nice as well.
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But she she’s been here and she’s cooked for me
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and she’s done some shopping for me, as have friends as well.
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So, yes, the friends as well is important
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if you haven’t got family around.
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And, you know, listening to Lesley,
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I can associate with a lot of what she was saying.
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Yeah, bless her with
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yeah, needing to rely on her friends
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and some of the friends stepped up. That’s fantastic.
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I’m so pleased that she was able to access their help.
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It’s great for her.
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And she’s been talking a bit about what she did struggle with
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and what she learnt.
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I struggled particularly after a mastectomy with the drain
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because I had problems that made me
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go through a phase of feeling vulnerable.
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And I’m not used to that feeling,
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that feeling of vulnerability.
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And I didn’t like it.
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Has that changed the way you generally look at who you are
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and where you are in life?
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Yes, I do think that an awareness of
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personal vulnerability is actually very strengthening.
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It works at a spiritual level.
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And I think that whilst I don’t think it’s essential to feel
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to have a sense of vulnerability,
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I think it it puts life in perspective.
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And that vulnerability, once again, looking at that,
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does it change your
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boldness or your ability, maybe, to ask for help?
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Well, my daughter named me Mrs 20 Questions.
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So I’ve never been one to shy from asking for help.
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But perhaps I do it.
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Yeah, but I wouldn’t I wouldn’t backslide.
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And as soon as I think I need help, I would definitely ask for it now.
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Yes, I do think I feel a little bit bolder.
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And what is your perspective change?
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Because we’ve had a little discussion over coffee previous to this.
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We did talk about, you know, how all of this does change
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your perspectives as well.
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I think after a diagnosis and certainly after drastic surgery,
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you do look at life and people and the world very differently.
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And, you know, you ask the question now, what really is this all about?
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What’s this? What is what can I learn from this experience?
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And I think that we can learn
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to value our friends and not take them for granted
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and just assume that they will be there and just be a good, just be a friend.
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Lots of very interesting points here.
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I have to say that during that, Emma came out with an expletive,
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which I won’t put in this, but we do use expletives.
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It was a drain, that drain.
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Yeah, it was drain related.
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When I had my surgery on my neck,
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I came out of hospital with with a drain in place.
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And it was trying to sleep with that drain
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because it’s obviously coming out of your skin.
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And it’s also it’s sorry if I’m going into detail here,
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but it’s sewn into your skin.
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And then the drain itself is then taped to you.
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So you don’t rip it out by accident.
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And then mine had a little handle on it.
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So like changing, getting in and out of clothes.
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I mean, because my my my final surgery was on my neck.
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So trying to move my arm, my right arm was very difficult.
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And of course, the drain was was just under my collarbone on my right hand side.
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So the drain was just in the way all the time.
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And it was it was exhausting having this drain.
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And I was delighted to have it removed.
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So, yeah, when when Lesley mentioned the drain, I was I was with her on that.
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And I think all sorts of cancer treatments and surgery
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have different things which really pee you off.
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I mean, I had a line to deliver.
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Oh, you had a PICC line.
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No, it wasn’t a PICC, Hickman.
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It was a Hickman line.
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Hickman line. Yes.
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You want to explain what a Hickman line is?
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Rather than putting a cannula on you each time.
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So it’s more of a permanent fixture, isn’t it?
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And it makes it easier for them to deliver whatever drugs they need.
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Now, my inability to describe that very well just shows that we are not experts
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or trained or doctors or anything like that.
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We just lived experience.
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And all I know is that it was some surgery, local anesthetic
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surgery in the neck, in the chest, fitting this line,
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which had to be kept very clean.
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And it was a problem in washing.
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Luckily, it wasn’t in for a huge long time.
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It was only a matter of weeks.
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But yes, that was a very annoying thing as well.
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Yeah. And whilst you were explaining that to me,
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you were pointing to your right chest.
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Yeah, I’ve still got the scar.
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I’ve still got the scar.
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Yeah, I’ve still got the scar from my drain.
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So did you have a lid on it?
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Well, it’s not like a port.
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A lot of people have ports fitted now.
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They’re called ports.
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But this was
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two tubes that came out from under a dressing,
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which then could be attached to the drip, the the infusion.
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And also when I had my own stem cells delivered back to me
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after my six days of high intensity chemotherapy.
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Oh, sounds great fun.
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Oh, yes, it was a bundle of laughs.
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OK, so last week, we were also talking with
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Father Peter Fellows, a priest in West Cornwall.
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And we were talking in part of this about faith.
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And the topic comes up again with Lesley.
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I think it does help that I am.
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I don’t know what you would call it.
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I’m a Quaker and I have a family of friends
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and I have a family of friends throughout Cornwall
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and throughout the country.
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And I have many friends who also aren’t Quakers.
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And everyone I meet, I’d like to consider a friend.
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And it it it puts a new meaning on friendship.
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Quakers really talk about friends and friendship quite a lot.
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But until you’ve been through that vulnerable phase
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and that that stage, the value of friendship.
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And I’m not talking about Quakers and I’m not talking about religion.
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But I am talking about relationships and relationships with people.
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Because you did mention to me over coffee
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something which I had read, but I’d forgotten
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because I had non Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
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And you mentioned about the man called Hodgkin, who was a Quaker.
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Yes, indeed.
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Hodgkin, which is very much related to cancer,
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was, I believe, a Quaker pharmacist.
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And the non Hodgkin’s lymphoma was named after him.
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And we do have Hodgkin’s buried in Quaker burial grounds in Cornwall.
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And I’ve done quite a bit of family history.
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Every time I see that name, I think cancer Quaker.
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Is there a faith level to your recovery?
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I think it’s faith in friendship.
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That there is no doctrine, there is no dogma with Quakers.
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But I think friendship is and peace
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all that I would say.
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Have you made new friends?
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I mean, as you say, you found people have come forward,
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but completely new friends through your experience.
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Yes, I have.
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And they are people who often I didn’t.
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I only knew them in passing.
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And they have been absolutely wonderful.
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And it is there is an energy out there that.
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Yes, I can’t think of anything.
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Well, we’re with the with the support network you you generate.
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And I go to the Cove, you go to the Cove and you meet people.
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You get into conversation.
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And I’ve been I’ve made friends through the music therapy group there as well.
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And it becomes like a new family, a new circle, I find.
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And you think, should I really be, you know,
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having this sort of circle of friends?
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I don’t know.
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I question myself sometimes because I think I really need to sort of
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be getting back to where I was with everyone else.
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But then you’ve changed so much.
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Have you found that you’ve changed?
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Yes, I have.
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I feel that I’m going through a phase of prioritization.
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And for the first time ever,
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I’m putting myself down as a priority
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in a way that I never did before.
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So I’m categorizing which things, which places, which
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which experiences are most important to me for survival.
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So Leslie, there was talking about friendships
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and how you do make a new circle of friends in this
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the club that no one wants to be a member of.
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And that’s how we became friends.
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It is, yeah.
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So I know I’ve talked about it before, but when I had my final surgery,
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I decided to go and find out a little bit more about the Cove,
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because that was somewhere to go and have a cup of tea.
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And and they’ve got the best toilets in the hospital.
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Don’t tell them I told you, but it’s an amazing place.
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And yeah, all of these options became open to me.
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You can join this group, this group, this group, this group.
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And music therapy appealed to me and my friend,
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my friend that I mentioned earlier, who with breast cancer, she’s also a musician.
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So the pair of us decided to join the music therapy group.
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And of course, that’s where we met you.
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But it was it was quite a number of sessions, wasn’t it?
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Before we actually I think we bumped into each other in the Cove Cafe.
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Yes, yes.
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And I came over and we just started chatting.
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And I think that’s where the friendship grew.
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It wasn’t in the group itself.
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It wasn’t in the therapy group.
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It was outside of the group because we had time to talk.
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It wasn’t all just based around the music.
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And we asked about each other’s backgrounds a little bit more,
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because within the groups, it tends to be a little more
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a little bit more confidential, doesn’t it?
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We tend to.
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Well, it’s essential that it’s confidential.
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Yes. Yeah.
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But what I meant was we tend not to
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talk too much about our backgrounds and what we do,
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because we are there for a reason.
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We are there to to get our anxieties out
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and to get our emotions out and to be in this safe space
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doing this this activity.
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And that’s similar to Portageur that we’ve done another podcast about
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another group where you go and do an activity
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and it’s about concentrating on that activity.
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Other groups like that.
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So, yeah, so but I think friendships grow beyond those groups.
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OK, so we mentioned the music therapy there.
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There is a podcast on the website that we have done previously about
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and with the music therapist.
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So go to that one.
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And let’s finish off this with listening to a bit of a tip from Lesley.
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I would say talk to friends who are good listeners.
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Yes, talk to friends who are good listeners and do it in various ways.
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Do it by email, by telephone, in person.
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I found that if you’re artistic in any way,
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which I would not consider myself to be.
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But having said that, I would consider that everyone has some
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artistic element in them.
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I found that writing about it helped me a great deal.
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I belong to an online poetry group, so that the writing of experience
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was important to me.
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Some people paint, some people, some people talk.
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It doesn’t really matter what you do.
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Some people go cold water swimming and talk about that.
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It doesn’t matter.
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But don’t live with that bottled up share.
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So that was Lesley Chandler.
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And you laughed there.
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You had a little bit of a laugh.
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I did. She mentioned cold water swimming.
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Now, I mean, I love the sea and I love being on the sea and in the sea,
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but I usually wear a dry suit when I’m in the sea.
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But I am going to try the cold water swimming in September.
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And I just giggled because I know it’s something that you really wanted me
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to do so that you could.
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I just want to do a film.
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I don’t know why you don’t.
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Can I not film you doing it?
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00:27:42.890 –> 00:27:44.650
No. Why not?
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Because I’m I’m trained with the camera.
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That’s an excuse, isn’t it?
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That’s why I giggled, because I’m trying to think of a way
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I can go in the water and not be absolutely freezing.
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Anyway, so that’s this week’s episode.
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And thank you, Emma.
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Now, just to remind you, go to our website
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to find out more support you can get.
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And there’s also lots of diary information as well and other podcasts.
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So this is a big hug from us.
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And we would like this hug to be handed on to other people.
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So do share our podcasts on your social media if you feel like it.
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And we will be back to give you a hug again next week.
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Yep. To give a hug, you receive a hug.
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Here to support you, the Cornwall Cancer Cafe podcast.
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Thanks to the National Lottery Community Fund for supporting this podcast.