Support women need at what can be a very worrying time
A breast cancer diagnosis or predisposition to the disease is a mental as well as a physical blow. Laura Joint reports on a special service designed to help
THANKS to the work of its incredible fundraisers, Plymouth-based charity The Primrose Foundation has been able to fund a fixed-term clinical psychologist for the Primrose breast care centre at Derriford Hospital – and one Plymouth woman has been speaking about how the support offered helped her to cope with a shock diagnosis.
Nicola Bevan-French was diagnosed with breast cancer, following a routine mammogram in April 2021, and was told she needed surgery. Faced with having to quickly make some big decisions, she felt overwhelmed. It became clear that what she really wanted was someone to talk to outside her family and friends, so she could express her fears without upsetting loved ones.
Nicola was seen, treated, and cared for by a team of consultants, plastic surgeons, and breast nurse specialists at the Primrose Breast Care Centre within University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, which is also home to The Primrose Foundation.
The foundation has raised millions of pounds since it was launched in 1995, with the initial aim of opening a ‘one-stop’ breast care clinic at the Derriford Hospital.
One of the foundation’s most recent fundraising successes was being able to fund a part-time clinical psychologist for two years. In Spring 2021, Katie Sleep joined the team at the Primrose Centre. Nicola said: “Katie asked me what my concerns were, and I said: ‘I’m scared I’m going to die’. Six to eight hours under anaesthetic terrified me.
“Katie then asked me some very direct questions about my fear of dying so that we went deeper into it, and I said: ‘The reason I’m so scared is that I’ve still got so much more living to do. I love my life’. So, through Katie’s specific questioning, I had reframed it, from being scared to have surgery in case I died, to saying: ‘I want to live, let’s get this done’.”
Nicola had a mastectomy and reconstruction in August 2021 and was back at work in October. She will need a yearly mammogram for the next five years but, other than that, she is back to living and loving her life just as before: “If I hadn’t gone to my mammogram, it would have been too late. I could be dying of breast cancer without even knowing it. I feel I was one of the very lucky ones.”
Without Katie, Nicola says the diagnosis would have been much harder for her to deal with: “Katie gave me a safe space to talk. The important thing is that the decision must be yours, not your partner’s, not your surgeon’s, not your wider family, yours. Katie knows what questions to ask that bring out our fears.”
Katie usually meets her patients in the centre’s specially designed quiet room, which was opened in 2020, also thanks to local fundraising. Although she does some work with diagnosed patients such as Nicola, her core work is with those who are genetically predisposed to breast cancer. Katie will meet these patients and discuss options, and the level of support Katie provides varies according to the patient’s needs.
Katie said: “My role is to bridge the medical side of things; it’s giving them space to work things out. And it’s about giving patients a degree of control, where before they felt they had no control. They are taking something back in a chaotic situation.
“Some patients, for various reasons, might decide they don’t want surgery. For some, surgery might feel like the only option. Then it’s about feeling comfortable in the decision they make. For one woman, that might be a mastectomy and no reconstruction, for another, reconstruction feels imperative as they could never imagine life without a breast shape.
“So, we look at what’s important to them in their lives. How do they feel about their bodies? What is the ripple effect of that in terms of relationships, self-confidence, going out socially? And I like to ask questions that others won’t ask, or questions that the patients might not have thought of – such as around intimacy with their partner. Considering these questions helps them to make the decisions that are right for them.”
The foundation has also funded the recent appointment of two additional breast care nurses for the centre for two years.
www.primrosefoundation.org