Tracey’s Story

“Counselling during chemo felt like a pit stop in a race.”

Tracey’s world crumbled after a breast cancer diagnosis. Counselling helped her take control of life again.

“I’ve always been a really busy person. I’ll try and help anybody if I can. So life was full on. My husband, John, and I were dealing with existing health issues. We were caring for elderly parents and trying to run a business. So when I got the breast cancer diagnosis, my world just crumbled.

I’ve always been strong for everybody else. It’s really hard for me to show that I need help. I was worried that I’d fall apart if I actually opened up about how I was really feeling. One of the breast care nurses suggested I contact Longfield about counselling.

I remember coming to see Lena, my counsellor, for the first time, and I still had my drain fitted from the surgery, and I was carrying my bag of blood around with me. Lena was amazing: she explained counselling in such a logical way that I just felt safe with her.

The chemo made me feel awful. So it was really hard to think straight and be rational. Seeing Lena helped me put things back in perspective. Rather than getting overwhelmed by my diagnosis and treatment – because it is overwhelming – it was right: ‘we’re just going to deal with this one day at a time.’

In the end, I didn’t fall apart. But I accepted that I would need to be vulnerable and open to get the most out of counselling. I knew probably from the second week on, ‘Ok, you’re probably going to cry. Just accept it. It’s not a bad thing, and actually you’re going to walk out feeling better than when you walked in. And I always did.

I would say each counselling session was like going in for a pit stop in a race. It was time to breathe for a moment and just be still. You had somebody looking after you and thinking about what you need and what might help you to keep going.

Slowly, I started to feel back in control of me again. I felt like I’d lost that for a while. Between appointments and side effects, you forgot who you are without the cancer. You kind of lose your identity a little bit – you become a patient, not a human being. It’s going to sound really corny, but counselling just helped me be me again.

Longfield feels a little bit like a Jigsaw piece. You can’t solve everything, but your support helps people piece their life back together… and even come back stronger.”