Therapy Today

Day in the life
‘Often somebody says
they want to speak
to me because they’ve
done so much crying
with each other
that they need an
outsider. This is why
I am here – to care,
support, listen and
give people space’
30 Therapy Today/www.therapytoday.net/November 2010
Clients frequently want to know
if I’ve had cancer. I say, ‘Everybody
nowadays has had some experience of
somebody close to them who has had
cancer.’ We leave it at that and they all
understand. Once when a client asked
me that question, she stopped, looked
at me sideways, and said, ‘I can see
you’ve suffered.’ Afterwards, I went to
my colleague and said, ‘Do I look so bad?’
and we had a good laugh.
I used to have lunch at my desk with
one hand on the computer, but my
husband advised me to go to another
room for at least 10 minutes. Now I go to
the counselling room and take The Times
crossword or sudoku with me. I don’t
do the clever crossword; I do the concise
one. My husband is very good at it and
we exchange notes in the evening. It’s
a lovely diversion.
In the afternoon I may have more
meetings to attend. Each different
medical team has its own weekly meeting.
There are many teams – the brain team,
the urology team, the breast team, the
ward team and many more. I don’t deal
with them all. I also do a lot of training
and support with the medical and nursing
staff, and supervise a palliative care nurse.
People in palliative care see end-of-life
only and it can be very heavy and difficult
to bear emotionally.
I have seen a lot of improvements in
cancer treatment in the 10 years I’ve
worked here. We’re not quite as good
as the rest of Europe, and definitely not
as good as the United States, but we are
better than we were. People are diagnosed
earlier because there is so much more
awareness in the population at large, and
amongst GPs. For example, 15 years ago,
if a 25-year-old woman went to her doctor
with a lump in her breast, the average GP
would have said, ‘Don’t worry; it’s the
time of the month.’ Whereas now the
average GP will say, ‘I don’t know what
it is. It’s probably nothing, but let’s
check.’ Also treatments have become
very much more refined and are not
as horrendous as they were.
I usually finish work at 5pm and go
straight home. I have a cup of coffee and
chat with my husband, who is retired and
does a lot of charity work. In the evening,
we spend time together. We both love
classical music and go to concerts.
Sometimes we’ll go out for a walk. We
have a married daughter who lives round
the corner with her husband. They have
a little boy who brings us a lot of joy.
If I am having an evening in I might
do the ironing whilst listening to
Radio 4 – I’m an avid fan. I also like to
read. At the moment I’m reading Julian
Barnes’s Arthur and George, which I find
intriguing. Because I was not educated
in this country – I was born in France
and came to England in my early 20s –
I decided to catch up on quite a lot of the
classics. I also love chatting to friends on
the phone and ring my mother most days.
Bedtime is after 11pm and nothing
much keeps me awake at night. I love my
work; it’s never boring or repetitive. It is
often very sad, but often it’s not. I meet
some amazing people: patients, carers
and relatives. The dedication of the
nursing and medical staff is unbelievable.
I am the first one to admit the NHS is
not perfect, but oh boy, they give so
much. For each ‘scandal’ you read in
the newspaper, there have been hundreds
of good interventions which are never
mentioned, that save and lengthen lives
and improve the quality of people’s lives
dramatically. It is a privilege to be part
of it.