'Younger women diagnosed with breast cancer’
BCNA forum, Sydney, NSW
Wednesday 9 October 2013
Reflections from Louise Turner, BCNA Community Liaison
Maxine Morand, Breast Cancer Network Australia’s CEO opened the event by speaking about the organisation’s 15 year anniversary. She spoke of the BCNA mission being to inform, empower, represent, and connect and the relevant and reliable information available on the website. She mentioned social media, Facebook and the BCNA online network as great ways for women to connect.
Professor Kate White was the first speaker discussing her area of expertise; sexual wellbeing following a cancer diagnosis. She discussed myths and misconceptions about sexual response including changes in intimacy and sexuality, common barriers to addressing intimacy and sexuality, altered body image and decreased libido. She highlighted the importance of seeking out and receiving information in a timely way and some tips to get help and encouraged talking to a clinician. She stressed ‘don’t be frightened to ask for information’.
The hilarious Jane Turner, Associate Professor of Psychiatry University of Queensland, was the next to take to the podium. She spoke about relationships and the impact of a diagnosis particularly for younger women. She listed common experiences for younger women might be; a feeling of ‘injustice’ and the disruption to the fabric of life, the fear of the future, early menopause and body image concerns. Jane talked about how the high levels of distress in young women impacts on their partner and the need for partners to acquire a new set of skills. She highlighted that the needs of partners are not always being met.
Jane said that acknowledging the enormity of the experience, taking time, having realistic expectations and reflecting on priorities are helpful to manage during this time. And she stressed “ladies, ask for what you want, don’t expect mind reading”.
She then moved on to talk about the impact of friends who didn’t understand the difficult journey. Jane had several suggestions of what to say to partners and friends and some strategies to overcome problems. She then spoke about the various responses in children at different ages to a parent’s diagnosis of cancer. She completed her discussion by highlighting resilience as an important factor in children’s responses. She offered a practical summary of things that could help and things that probably won’t. She closed by saying an active problem solving approach is most helpful.
Professor John Boyages, Director of the Macquarie University Cancer Institute, was the next to speak. He started by giving BCNA a huge wrap in response to what he has experienced around the world in similar organisations. He spoke about life after breast cancer treatment highlighting the key issues for the newly diagnosed; relationships and emotional impact; breast conservation; reconstruction; the other breast; axillary treatment; chemo versus hormone treatment; clinical trials and side effects. He promoted his book “Breast Cancer, taking control” that covers much more than what he had time to talk about, and highlighted that “we still have lots to learn”.
John continued with statistics about the risks of breast cancer by age, and also importantly how to speak to doctors and take control of appointments. He mentioned that there are special challenges and that sufferers might experience a ‘down time’ when treatment finishes. He said to take the Panadol approach when experiencing pain after treatment is complete. “If pain persists, see your doctor”.
Breast surgeon Dr Kylie Snook was the final speaker and her topic was breast reconstruction. She said that 50% of the women she offers breast reconstruction to go ahead with breast reconstruction. She disclosed that when discussing breast reconstruction, the psychological outcomes are the same for women who do and those who do not go through with breast reconstruction, as long as they are presented with the choice.
Kylie talked about how important it is to consider the goals of the patient when taking about reconstruction; she also discussed the main types of breast reconstruction including implant procedures and tissue transfer procedures, and mentioned the impacts of radiation on breast reconstruction. She stressed, that it is important that the patient is happy with the procedure and the outcome, not if the surgeon is happy. She went on to discuss advances in breast reconstruction procedures.
Lisa from BCNA mentioned the Breast Reconstruction private online group where women are sharing their breast reconstruction stories with pictures. Women wanting to access this live resource should go to the BCNA online network and do a group search for Breast Reconstruction.
This forum presented opportunities for questions from the audience to the speakers at intervals throughout. BCNA provided a yummy supper and beverages in the foyer of the Locomotive Workshop at Technology Park Sydney.