Vita Issue 14 Winter 2013 Feeling THE HEAT Coping with menopausal symptoms after breast cancer EVERY LOSER WINS How to lose weight and keep it off post treatment With complements Do complementary therapies really work? THE SHOW MUST GO ON Fashion show model Andrea Hull shares her experience contentswinter 10 14 3 Inbox Your letters, tweets 21 and emails to Vita 4 News The latest goings on 06 Welcome to Vita As we start another year, many of us will be thinking about 6 Work out in style Hot topic things we want to do differently in our lives. Perhaps taking Active fashion 17 With complements up a new activity or starting new, healthier habits. On Do complementary therapies page 13 we speak to Gabby Mottershead, who started Real lives really work? walking after breast cancer in a bid to be more active and 8 Time is a healer who now leads one of Breast Cancer Care’s Best Foot Five years on from Your questions Forward walking groups. breast cancer answered If losing the weight you might have put on during 9 The show must go on 18 Ask a breast treatment for breast cancer is top of your list of New Year’s Meet our cover star cancer expert resolutions, you might find our article on page 12 useful. 10 Check this out Our experts answer Here we look at how to lose weight safely and hopefully Returning to work your questions keep it off for good. 11 The aftermath For some people, a new beginning can mean a return Coping when treatment In touch to an old routine. For Sue Eagling, a fresh start after her has finished 20 Vita bloggers treatment for breast cancer meant going back to the job Meet our new bloggers she enjoyed and the colleagues she missed. You can read Healthy living about her experience on page 10. 12 Every loser wins Good food Whatever goals you’ve set yourself for the year ahead, I Keeping a healthy balance 21 Wakey wakey wish you the very best of luck with them and the very best 13 Vita goes walking Start the day with a of health for 2013. One reader tests out a good breakfast I hope you enjoy this issue, which has been kindly new activity supported by our friends at Asda. Fundraising Your health 22 Working in partnership 14 Feeling the heat 23 Calendar of events What you should know about 24 Walk this way menopausal symptoms Laura Fountain 25 Breast Cancer Care free Editor Media matters service listings [email protected] 16 New pages The latest books on breast cancer Vita is kindly supported by Vita Editor: Laura Fountain; Online editor: Pete Coles; Design: Luisa Cosio. Vita is published by Breast Cancer Care, 5-13 Great Suffolk Street, London SE1 0NS. Tel: 0845 092 0800. Registered charity in England and Wales 1017658. Registered charity in Scotland SC038104. ISSN 1751-3081. © January 2013 Breast Cancer Care. All rights reserved. Vita is a FREE magazine. It is not sold, hired out, or otherwise reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright holder. Twitter: @Vita_mag Facebook: facebook.com/breastcancercare. Cover image courtesy of WOMAN&HOME/Liz McAulay. Cover image courtesy of WOMAN&HOME/Liz McAulay. Inbox Don’t forget to visit Vita online… www. vita.org.uk Dear Vita Way, and, one week after finishing radiotherapy, I climbed Ben Vorlich This issue’s When I was diagnosed with breast cancer and on a stunning autumn day. It was so star letter advised to have a mastectomy, I was shocked and great to feel normal again! wins a £50 frightened. Frightened that my interesting and active Two years on, I’m back to wearing voucher from life would come to a sudden stop; frightened, in a proper rucksack. On a rambling our friends particular, that my hill walking days were over. But holiday recently one of the women in the at Asda. the best therapy for me was realising I could still get group was using a waist-pack. I got talking to her out on the hills. and discovered she’d had breast cancer and had I couldn’t wear a rucksack, but discovered that developed lymphoedema. It was the lymphoedema many outdoor shops stock ‘waist-packs’, with a that prevented her from wearing a normal rucksack. strong, padded belt, a bag attached at the back, We both agreed that the waist-pack is one of those containing compartments for food, drinks, first aid simple discoveries that helps to open up the world kit and straps underneath to hold overtrousers and again — we want to spread the word! a folded sit-mat. So, six weeks after my operation, I was walking an eight-mile stretch of St Cuthbert’s Jane Carry on Real lives First diagnosed with primaryregardless breast cancer a decade ago, Anne Shingler was told she had developed secondary breast cancer in 2008. She tells us about the differences in care she received after her secondary diagnosis. I was diagnosed with primary breast cancer the day my husband and I moved from London to a new home in Dear Vita Dear Vita Wales. Everything seemed a blur. It took months of treatment including a mastectomy and chemotherapy before I could return to work, building up from scratch a new business teaching piano in Wales. Ending treatment was also hard as the hospital’s support had been great and having it taken away suddenly left me feeling in limbo. Four years later, a recurrence of the cancer was found on my mastectomy I found Autumn’s Vita particularly interesting Sometimes I have read your scar. My husband’s private insurance covered me for quick treatment and I had radiotherapy this time, which I found much more manageable than the chemotherapy had been. After treatment, I felt positive and moved on quite quickly. Then in 2008, I was and the article ‘Does breast cancer have to be magazine and ended up grinding diagnosed with secondary breast cancer ‘Even when I’m tired, I make small targets after a routine check-up. like meeting friends for coffee. I’ve managed There were defi nite differences from bigger things too – I went to Sicily to learn the way I’d been treated previously. For one, no nurse was in the room when I Italian, I performed in three Proms and I was given the diagnosis. The consultant carried the Olympic torch.’ was kind but blunt and explained my life so pink’ caught my eye. my teeth at the bias towards expectancy would be severely shortened and there was no cure. nerve-wracking. The support from I started chemotherapy again but people on the Breast Cancer Care decided to carry on working. If I was Discussion Forum was vital at this time. need hormone treatment for my cancer. in the same situation now, I’d make a My life’s changed massively since I try to live for every day. Even different decision, but at the time, the then. I made an effort to meet other when I’m tired, I make small targets routine helped distract me even though people and it’s helped greatly: I’ve like meeting a friend for coffee. I’ve it was exhausting. started a meeting group for people with managed bigger things too – I went to Helen’s view was very similar to mine. I like primary breast cancer. Issue 13 Around this time, my husband left secondary breast cancer in Cardiff. I Sicily to learn Italian, I performed in three me as he was unable to cope. It was also joined two social groups and went Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, and I devastating. I felt incredibly isolated. to a pottery class. I campaign for Breast carried the Olympic torch in Blaenavon. We’d been very close and, since I Cancer Care around secondary breast I know I have a reduced life expectancy gave individual piano tuition in Wales, cancer issues and, at present, I only and I’m often very tired, but I’m still here! I hadn’t met many other people locally. I just got back from holiday and I hope For a time, I was very anxious and even there’s a lot more to come for me. the pink branding and agree wholeheartedly was different with two articles things like going to the shop became Find out more about our services and campaigns for people living with secondary breast cancer at Hot topic www.breastcancercare.org.uk/secondaries that it works. Anything that generates funding about secondary breast cancer www.vita.org.uk | 11 Niftyshades? has to be encouraged. and the story of how a man’s Does the colour pink bother you when it comes to fundraising for and raising awareness of breast cancer? However, since being diagnosed five years life changed after his wife died with breast cancer. YES says Helen, who thinks pink is too fluffy for a serious subject. NO says Sue, who is What’s the problem with girlie, rose-tinted, candy ago, I do find some aspects of breast It felt as if the more uncomfortable faces of the proud to wear her fl oss, bubble gum, blushing pink? From that description quite a bit! Pink, in our culture, is pink T-shirt. synonymous with a prettiness, gentleness, and sweetness that seems completely incongruous to I’m more than happy to wear pink when I’m many of us who have been diagnosed with breast representing Breast Cancer Care.