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A Breast Cancer Survival Story: Finding Your New Self · Work It Like A Mum

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women job board and community.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: In this show, I'm honoured to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, set boundaries and balance, the challenges they've faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Shy away from the real talk?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: No way.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Money struggles, growth, loss, boundaries and balance we cover it all.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Think of this as coffee with your mates, mixed with an inspiring TED Talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, make sure you're cosy and get ready to get inspired and chase your boldest dreams, or just survive Mondays.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: This is the Work it Like A Mum podcast.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries, ready to find your perfect job.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Search their website at investinginwomencouk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Now back to the show.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the work.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: It like a mom podcast.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Today I am chatting with anya webster and I met anya a few weeks ago at a networking lunch and I thought she was someone that I would definitely want to get on the podcast because Anya is herself a breast cancer survivor.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: She was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of years ago and she has now retrained to become a coach to help others on their recovery after breast cancer.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: So I thought you know we've had a chat before the recording and you told me that one in seven people are diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: We know that the stats are about one in two people are diagnosed with cancer.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: So I think that the work she's doing is fantastic.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: So hopefully, this episode if you are, you know, facing illness or you're close to somebody that is sort of how to manage that, how to navigate that and then how to navigate the recovery as well, because I'm I'm sure the NHS, as wonderful as they are, they probably sign you off, but there's a lot of um, you know emotions that you know that I know accompany that um as well that you've got to then navigate.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for joining me.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: It's a real pleasure to chat with you.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Thanks for inviting me.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: No, that's all right.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So talk me through your you know how.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Talk me through your diagnosis and when you were diagnosed and what your symptoms were.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: So I was 44 at the time and I did have an awareness that there was breast cancer in my family.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: However, I didn't test positive to any genetic kind of faults, but there were.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Both of my grandmothers had breast cancer and.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: I had an aunt who'd had it as well.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: So I was aware and I was very busy at the time, you know, as a teacher working full time, managing a really busy department and probably not really looking after myself that well at the time, um, but had felt particularly tired and just thought maybe it's time just to get everything sort of checked out.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: I was aware of a few friends that had breast cancer, and obviously it's on your mind.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: So, um, I was too young to be screened, um, and I had asked in the past, but I was told because it wasn't you know my mother who had had breast cancer I wasn't eligible to go and have a mammogram for free, um, so I went and paid for a whole sort of set of tests up at Harley Street, um, and one of the last tests they did was a mammogram, and I remember them sort of saying right, we're in it, we're in a rush, now got to just go and get this final picture done, and then you're done for the day.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: And then a couple of weeks later, I had a letter back saying that there was some evidence of calcification on my left breast, and I had absolutely no idea what that meant.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: No, I don't know what it what does that mean?
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: do you know Exactly?
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: And?
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: But they were saying the image was a little bit blurred.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: So they wanted to take it again and they wanted to get this calcification sort of tested.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: And I remember thinking calcification, is it something that happens when you get older, you know?
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Is it with kind of I don't know anyway.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: So I kind of left it and I shouldn't have done, but I did because I was very busy at work.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: And then, probably about four weeks later, I got a random call saying I was somehow in the pipeline for somebody who needed to come back and had this sort of this picture taken again.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: I thought, ok, I better get it done.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: So I sort of nipped out a really busy day at work.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: I nipped out.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: And you had to go all the way to Harley Street, I guess.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: No, actually I went to the New Victoria Hospital close to where I live and, yeah, I sort of just they took another mammogram and I was like, oh okay, they're being a bit quiet about it.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: And they said, okay, we'll do an ultrasound as well.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: And I kept sort of saying you can't see anything, can you?
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: And she said actually I think I can now and I sort of you know, panic strikes and you think, oh goodness.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: So I was in and out that afternoon and after having a couple of quite painful biopsies done, they were quite convinced that there was something that shouldn't be there.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: So they were.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: To cut a long story short, they found two cancerous tumors in my left breast which at the time they didn't think had spread to my lymph nodes.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Um, but when it got to surgery there was actually a little bit in my, in my left, um, when one of my lymph nodes basically wow, okay so yeah, so she moved quite quickly then, once you'd got the diagnosis, to surgery, to treatment yeah, it was one of those kind of it was.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: I think I got diagnosed on the 27th of May and I think I did wait eight weeks, before everything was ready, to have my mastectomy.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: We were kind of going into the summer period.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: You know surgeons being away and annually and and things like that, and and also anyone who has had the diagnosis knows that once you actually know, then you go through a whole lot of testing to find out that hasn't spread.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Um, you know you have to have something that's called a pet scan where they check your whole body for any kind of you know signs of cancer that has spread to you know, distance disease, basically, um, and thankfully that wasn't the case, but it all takes time.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it was quite an interesting time.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Intense.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: How do you?
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I mean gosh.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I can just imagine your anxiety must have been through the roof during that period.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and how do you advise clients as well to cope?
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: I mean that.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Just you know it's horrendous, isn't it?
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the worst time for me was definitely them having found something and then confirming that it was cancer.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: I think that was a time where I was kind of really beside myself.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Um, I had a lovely, lovely breast care nurse who kept in touch and who kind of, um, yeah, helped me get my answers a little bit quicker, which I'll never forget her for um, and then I think once you know, I was weirdly calm about it.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Um, I can't really describe it, I was very quiet when he told me that I but I felt a relief that he had told me that it was probably going to be curable and yeah, I was going to be fine.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Um, but then leading up to mastectomy, that's a whole different anxiety yeah, you have two children.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: I've got two children, yeah, yeah, and at the time they were about seven and eleven, so so, how did you?
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: did you tell them?
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: we did tell them and I think we just wanted to be very open family.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: We talk about things um but we wanted to make sure that we knew everything about my treatment before we told them.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: We wanted to make sure we could tell them I was going to be okay so we just sort of sat them down and said you know, mummy's found this lump in her breast and it is cancer, um, and we're going to have to get it taken out.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: But we're very hopeful, I'm going to be just fine so but a very difficult thing to say to children, I can imagine, and then you obviously going through treatment, and I know that chemo can make people really poorly yeah talk.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: What were your sort of strategies?
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Coping strategies.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: I think there was a period after my surgery where I felt again very calm and relaxed because I was very happy that the cancer had left my body.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: And then there was another period of anxiety where you wait for pathology tests to come back, which is has it spread to your lymph nodes?
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: And yes, it has.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: So that was the time where I knew, when I was told that, I knew I would have to have chemotherapy oh, because there was a chance that you might not have had to have it.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it just all depends.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: You know, every woman is completely individual, um, and it's just down to the finest detail.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: They're so clever, yeah, but my recurrence uh risk was a little bit higher than average and the fact that I had node involvement meant that they wanted me to have chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: So I felt, yeah, I wasn't.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: I was very, very anxious about that and I remember the week before I'd been very calm and measured up until that point, but I completely had a meltdown on my oncologist and my nurse.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: I just sobbed and sobbed, oncologist and my nurse.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed and I just kept saying I don't want it, I don't want it.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they sort of did their best to, you know, talk me around and yeah, then you just, you know, a day you just find yourselves on the chemo ward and you can't believe it that you're waiting for your first treatment and are you there all day?
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Um, it depends.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: So I had, um, so I had four cycles, first of a very harsh uh chemotherapy.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: It's, it's made used for breast cancer.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: It's called red chemo they refer to they actually refer to as a red devil because it's really harsh.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: So I had four cycles of that and that's quite quick in terms of infusion and you know, but it it's pretty nasty on the body and your hair starts falling out.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Probably on the second time I would say I had lumps of hair falling out, and then the last four cycles I had eight in total was a different one.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: That just gave me different side effects and I had to be in for much longer when that was infused.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 16 weeks in total.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: It's brutal, isn't it?
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: So when your hair fell out, did you go get a wig?
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I did so.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: First of all, I actually took my husband's stepmother first of all to take me to have a haircut.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: She happened to be with me.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: It's quite an amusing day.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: I had a real kind of boy haircut to me, um, and remember coming home and brushing through it and this massive lump fell out and I thought, oh, sod it.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah it felt really, really brutal actually and I just thought, can we just shave it off?
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: So she helped me bless her um, shave my hair off and it was kind of all really lumpy and catchy, and shaved my hair off and it was kind of all really lumpy and patchy and looked strange.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: So I kind of got the razors out and, yeah, that was really hard actually and it was really difficult for my children, particularly my son, found that very traumatic, yeah.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: But yes, I wore a wig from time to time, but I kind of mostly just got some funky headscarves and just kind of put big earrings in, yeah things like that, just trying to make myself feel better about what I was going through so yeah, I guess sometimes did you ever feel like when you were well, if you didn't look well, do you know, did you feel people like looking at you when you were, if you took, you, went out, or was that?
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Something when I was wearing a scarf.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, like between you know, my friend, you see, she had chemo and she said you feel very ill for like a week and then you actually feel okay for a couple.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know if that was this case with you between the um, yes, it was you very much um, I think what she probably refers to is you very much kind of find your pattern.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I, I knew I had chemo every second Friday and that after that day I would feel ill for a good sort of four or five days.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, then I would see the light and I would bounce back and that would be my.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: But yes, I do remember sort of walking around Sainsbury's with my headscarf on my trolley and you just know people are looking at you and they just people are scared of it.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: You know it's cancer scary and yeah, it is scary and yeah, and I think they look at you and probably feel sorry for you, but I also think, oh, I really don't ever want that myself.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really scary thing, but what were you like coping?
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: you know what did you do to look after yourself during treatment and I guess between scans did you have any coping mechanisms?
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, I think so.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: You know, I was quite, um, I would try and get out as often as I could, so when I felt well enough I would go for a long walk.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Um, I would try and do some gentle yoga because you know, it's sort of quite well proven that when you are going through treatment, even if you can exercise a little bit, you are going to tolerate the chemotherapy better and you might have a better outcome as well.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: So I tried to stay as active as I could.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Um, I rested lots and I'm not a very patient person.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: I'm not very good at sitting still, so that was frustrating.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Um, but I did try to rest and do as I was told by my husband and I had very good support there and then just try to go out and do normal things you know when I could and go out for dinner and just little things to kind of fill my bucket, yeah.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: And then you had a mastectomy Is that right?
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: And then what was the recovery like then after that.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: So it was about six Big operation, isn't it?
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Mine was huge and I think you know mastectomy in itself is.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: I had a skin sparing mastectomy, which is where they effectively sort of cut around your nipple and take away all the cancerous tissue.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: And then I had what was called a DAF flap reconstruction, which is where they use tummy tissue to then create a new breast so yes a long-haul operation.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: Eight to sort of nine hours.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: I think I was under so I didn't know any of it, but my parents and, you know, my husband were beside themselves.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: So yeah, but it just meant I felt I think every, every woman is different and not everybody qualifies for that type of surgery.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Um, and I think some, some women choose to go flat, some choose to have an implant and for me, as I was right for the surgery just felt right to have my own tissue in my breast yeah, yes, yeah.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: There's obviously different factors, isn't there, depending on what you want and then you mentioned that your breast cancer was hormonal.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Really, is there some breast cancers that aren't hormonal related?
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: yes, there are some breast cancers.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: So, for example, uh, triple negative, yeah, people that test positive for the BRCA gene um, they are, I believe, also another breast cancer called HER2, which is a protein.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: I believe they are a bit more aggressive, I think.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, but yes, mine was strongly hormonal and then what did that mean then after that for you?
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: so that meant that when I was ready, after I'd come through active treatment and that when I say active treatment I mean both chemotherapy and radiotherapy that meant that I needed to start taking hormone blockers.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: So a tablet every day and, uh, monthly injections into my stomach to um shut down my ovaries.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Basically because you wanted as little, as little estrogen as possible in my body.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: So that you know my recurrence uh risk would be lower so you've gone through a medical menopause.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I have very sudden.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: I mean in all honesty, after my second chemotherapy my periods had already stopped.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: So at that point I was considered menopausal.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when I came through active treatment I was almost considered post menopausal, but I still needed these um tablets to take every day and, like I said, the injections so it's a lot you've gone through, isn't it?
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: you've gone through cancer and then menopause, and I guess you can't take HRT no, no, you're definitely not.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: That's not an option for me, which means you have to sort of try and figure it out.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: You know, naturally, but it is a bit of.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: It's a bit of a slap in the face when you've gone through the active treatment, because you're battered and bruised anyway.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: So it's a bit of a slap in the face when you've gone through the active treatment because you're battered and bruised anyway.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: So it's a lot.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: My dad was a gp.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: He's retired now but he said yeah, he said it was always a lot tougher that menopause like the medical menopause yes it's just like an instant overnight shock to a body.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: You know your body yeah, it makes you feel very old in a slow decline.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does it really does make you feel old.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Did you get all the menopausal symptoms then after?
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, I did, yeah, and I still very much, you know, got a lot of them.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: So for me that were things like having lots and lots of hot flushes every day, night sweats, aching you know, aching bones and joints and things like that, migraines and just feeling, you know, low mood sometimes.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: yeah, yeah, I'm gonna sneeze now.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Sorry, I was gonna.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: I thought I was gonna sneeze there, um, and it's it's got past.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: So I mean, how have you looked after yourself then on that recovery?
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been hard work, but I think I've always been somebody who really wanted to know everything, really wanted to inform myself so that I could empower myself and make my life better.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: So I think I spend a lot of time researching things, finding people on podcasts, on Instagram and looking up articles.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: You know how do you?
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: How do you do a natural menopause when you're in this situation?
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: So for me, that very much became about exercising lots.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Frequently.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: When you're in an early menopause, you're also high risk of osteoporosis and heart disease.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Um, so exercise for me is has has really helped me.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Um, whether that be strength training or walking or just yoga classes.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: That's been really, really helpful um I absolutely love cooking sort of you know lovely food.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Now I've sort of educated myself about what are the things that I need you know, because it's.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: You know, they say food is good for your gut, isn't it?
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: And your gut is where lots of things start.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: But also it's just been fantastic for my mind and my energy.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Just eat well and balanced.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I've reduced my alcohol.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: You know I don't drink very often now.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Um, I I do still drink alcohol, but it's when there's an occasion.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: So things like that help my menopause symptoms and just kind of just releasing my stress in different ways.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: You know, I was quite stressed before.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: I had my breast cancer diagnosis, so I'm trying to generally live more mindfully.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: And slowing down where I can.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Do you still have to go for regular checkups?
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very much so yeah.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: How do you?
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: You know, I've heard of like scansiety and things like that.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard, it is really hard and I think you know that is one of the things that I talk to my clients a lot about, because most women that come to me have, you know, really struggled with recurrence fear.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: So I do lots of things like I leave notes for myself, I journal, I write things down, which really helps me process my thoughts before a scan and I sort of say to myself look, I'm being checked regularly, you know, if there is anything there, I want to know about it, so that yeah, you'll know about it early, I guess.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to know about it so that we can pick it up.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: And I just do things like having a nice day before I go and I do some breathing techniques and it doesn't completely go away.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: But you can.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: You can manage it, I would say and how has it changed relationships within you know your family, your family, really protective of you now and yeah, I think they.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: I mean it's.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: It's been a lot actually I um my daughter is that age where she's kind of on TikTok at the moment and I was going through her phone the other day with her and she had a draft in there where she had been on my Instagram and taking lots of pictures from my Instagram where I was going through treatment and she'd written like a little sort of note under each of them and it really sent me off because I didn't know she'd done it and she'd written things like oh you know, watching my mum goes to chemo every Friday is really hard, knowing there's nothing I can do for her and praying that she's going to get well, things like that.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: But they have been very protective of me, but they've been incredible you know, and they've been very understanding in the sort of cancer aftermath.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: If you like.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: So feel lucky and what happened to your career, because you were a teacher and you didn't go back.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: So no yeah, talk us through what you decided to do next?
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: I think I mentioned to you that I just wasn't really I wasn't feeling in my best place really before I finished teaching, before my diagnosis.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: I just wasn't quite looking after myself.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: I was stressed and work was kind of my everything and I loved it.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: I was ambitious, I loved teaching, but I think when you get a shock like that, it does really make you sort of look at things differently.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Things fall into perspective um, a little bit.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: So I we were lucky that, as a couple, you know I was able to take some time off and think about what I wanted to do while I was recovering which was incredibly helpful and I decided that that was going to be a life coach, that I could sort of transfer my teaching skills into that.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: So did you retrain?
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Then I did yes.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: It took about a year to retrain to become a life coach.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: I did an online course with a number of kind of you know, online tutorials and things like that and group sessions, and it just I just saw it nice again.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Maybe because I'm such a driven person, I have to put my mind to something.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: You know I can't just sit around doing nothing.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: So for me that actually became a huge part of my healing and it gave you something else, I guess, to focus on, apart from being poorly or recovering.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're absolutely right, I didn't sort of think, you know I didn't sit at at home.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Think about what I've been through all the time or worried about that.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: It was back and so that was incredibly helpful.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: So you've focused now on helping people.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Is it people with breast cancer or people that have been?
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: poorly or it's breast cancer really, because I do think, like we've spoken about so, so many complexities come come with it in terms of menopause symptoms and everything else that you suffer with because of the tablets that you take.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: So I felt very lucky in terms of my medical team.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: I know that I can get in touch with my nurse whenever I want or my oncologist if I have any concerns, but it's not the same for everybody.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm very lucky to have private medical insurance, um, but it's not the same.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: And I think women, when they come out sort of the other side, if you like, often can feel like they're dropped.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and actually that's really when the hard work begins, because you're processing in through um and we all know that when we've been on high alert for a very long time, suddenly, when we stop, that's when we can get symptoms of depression, anxiety, ptsd, even um, and I just felt there was so much to get my head around and I thought what could I do for others that would make it easier for them.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of when thoughts about the breast cancer coach um came about.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: I wanted a safe space, um.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: I didn't want any pink bows or any breast cancer logos or anything like that.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: I just wanted like a safe space where women could come to um and talk about what they've been through, while thinking ahead to the future yeah, yeah.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: So how?
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: How do you sort of just help people navigate this?
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Have you got any tips for anybody that maybe is listening to this and it's navigating, you know, I guess such a shock and a traumatic period and trying to get life back, to get back together.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: I guess it's very difficult and I think everybody's different, but I would say the first thing is to be kind to yourself and be compassionate and I think, as a woman who is juggling family life and some women have very little time before they have to go back to work, which can be incredibly difficult I think find that compassionate voice, have some therapy, have, have some coaching, um, and just keep reminding yourself that you've been through an awful lot and it's not going to be an overnight fix.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: So really digging deep for that patience can be very helpful, but it takes time absolutely.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: There's something else I thought I mentioned because the networking event that we met, we had a guest speaker didn't we?
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: That was a finance expert and he mentioned about the critical illness cover and I don't know if you had that, but I guess if you are in a position to get critical illness cover, then there's definitely something purchasing, because you know obviously this can happen to anybody, but you get a payout, yeah no, if you get diagnosed, it will help pay the mortgage or rental yeah, I mean, it's so many things you don't think about when you're suddenly, you know, faced with a situation like that because you had it, didn't you?
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: I think you saw you raised your hand yes, and that did pay out when I was poorly.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: I needed time off work yeah, and I guess that's one thing, that's one less worry thinking absolutely my mortgage is paid so I can recover.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Focus on recovering, or whatever yes, there's so many other things.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, not only are you coping with the cancer diagnosis, but there's all the other worries that come with it.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: You know, yeah, how will I cope financially?
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: How would my family cope?
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: You know, people have other problems on top of it, don't they?
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: they might be caring to somebody else already did you use the Macmillan team as well?
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: I read a lot on their website.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Um, I didn't have any um counseling with them, but I think it is available um free.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: I used a counselor in my um a therapist in my local area and I think that was absolutely invaluable.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um, and I did that throughout my treatment and then afterwards as well, and I think that just meant that I didn't completely crash yeah, yeah.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm so pleased that you, you know, you took something that was so negative and you managed to turn it into something that helps other people, because I think this is so.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: It was so needed for a managed to turn it into something that helps other people because I think this is so it was so needed for a lot of people that are just probably left shell-shocked.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: You know, they probably feel they've been hit by a bus and yeah, it's difficult themselves up.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: It's like that.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Expectation is you're back at work, everything's normal, and you're not, I think you're not and I think it's just real that you know, you feel it, you kind of you grieve and you go through a lot of emotions.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: You grieve your old self, because that old self probably doesn't exist anymore and may never come back.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: But I guess the message for me is that you know there can be a new and and a better version from you, um, or of you.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, I actually feel much better than I did before I had breast cancer.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you look, you look fantastic.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Well, I do feel.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, I actually feel much better than I did before I had breast cancer.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you look, you look fantastic.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I do feel.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: I mean I obviously I suffer from the menopause symptoms and things, but I do your skin is glowing, like if we share the video, you'll see your skin is glowing.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: You look beautiful thank you.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Well, I do, I do really look after myself, and yeah, so.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: I think that's been helpful.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: But but I think your identity and your confidence it really takes a knock, but you can work on it and you can get the right support, absolutely.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: So where can people find you, connect with you, learn more about your services?
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm on.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Instagram, thebreastcancercoach.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: I have my website, thebreastcancercoachcouk.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: You can read some case studies of women that I've seen and sort of read more about what I offer.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Um, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Facebook, so and I guess well you.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I think this is a great gift as well, actually to buy some coaching.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you offer gift out just for a friend or a family member that's gone through this and you know you really want to support yeah, no, absolutely I do so.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: I do different options.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: You know, I do a six week coaching course, which is the one most women go for, but I also do a one off longer coaching session if there's something that women particularly want to dive into.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: But they're different options.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Today it's been a real pleasure to chat with you.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Thanks very much for inviting me, thank you thank you for listening to another episode of the work.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: It like a mum podcast.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: If you're on linkedin, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: You can also follow my recruitment site Investing in Women on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.