Just before Christmas last year, Wendy, 54, was diagnosed with bowel cancer which spread to her lymph nodes and was given a short prognosis, which turned her life upside down.

Eight months later, Wendy finds regularly speaking over the phone with her St Helena Hospice counsellor, Sarah Harper-Rowe, is vital in helping her to manage the emotions of her palliative diagnosis and the impact on her family life. 

Wendy first had contact with the Hospice after she was referred for support to manage her discomfort and pain, which is when she had a visit at her home on Mersea Island from specialist palliative care doctor, Dr Ramesh. Wendy shares her experience: 

Counselling

It’s been very difficult for everybody to come to terms with my diagnosis and when the counselling service kicked in it was a game changer for me.

I’ve got a very loving family around me, lots of friends, a really good support network, but being brutally honest about how you feel and how scared you are, is something that you don’t want to burden other people with. So having access to the counselling service was just so incredible, it came at the right time.

My counsellor Sarah has been such an amazing source of support; she's helped me through so many things, even things I didn't know that I needed to talk about. I feel like I've solved so many problems, it's been a weight lifted so I'm incredibly grateful for that.

I speak to her on the phone because it's much easier for me than having to get in and out of town. Counselling keeps me level, balanced, I feel safe, I feel calm. I trust her implicitly and I really look forward to our conversations. Living with cancer is a difficult thing and she’s made it so much easier.

The counselling has helped me set boundaries. I want all my family and friends around me, of course I do, but there are moments when I do need my own space. Sarah has given me techniques in the way that I can talk to people and be really honest with people, and they take it really well. Because I'm nice, I don't like to say please don't come round, I just need to lie down, so her suggestions have been really helpful and it's been a bit liberating. 

It's also helped with telling family members about the cancer and explaining what's going on. I always feel like honesty is the best policy. We have two sons who are adults but it's still very difficult. I'm still their mum, they're still my children, so explaining to them what's going on and finding a way to tell them in the best possible way was really important to me. Counselling helped me work out how I was going to say things and how I was going to present this to people.

Clinical nurse specialist

I also have a lovely specialist nurse from the hospice, Julia, who checks in regularly that I’m pain free and that I'm coping okay. I did have an incident a few months ago where my leg was swelling, it was quite painful. She came out to have a look at me, see what the situation was, and she said I'm really sorry, I think you've got DVT, we're going to have to get you into emergency services. To be honest, I would have sat on it rather than go to emergency services but she persuaded me to go in and thank goodness she did because it was a clot and I needed the treatment urgently. I mean, she saved me! 

She's been invaluable and she's also very supportive to my husband when she comes. He's able to ask questions, she's able to answer them and that's really important for us to have access to that kind of support. She's been great.

SinglePoint

My husband used SinglePoint when there have been a few moments where the pain was worse and we had to increase medication, so there were a few times where he was so concerned he phoned to check what he needed to do. It's so overwhelming for the family members and they need that reassurance and need to double check, so it gave him a place to call and make sure he wasn't giving me the wrong dose, make sure he was getting into the routine with all the different medications and making sure those medications were all in the right order. That's really helpful and just knowing the number is there to call is reassuring.

What they've been able to do for me is get me into a really deep meditative state where I can take my mind somewhere else and be somewhere else and just see these wonderful things and into this nice calm place. It's almost unbelievable, a bit sci-fi to say this! I can see that it would be so reassuring for a patient to be able to take themselves away from their body and forget they are poorly and be in a moment of spiritual calm. 

The team

All those services combined have kept me going and made me feel good and well, mentally and physically well. That's all I can ask. 

I want to give a huge thank you to all the staff at St Helena, it is a proper vocation for those people. They love what they do, they really care about the people that they support. They care about each other as well, they're so connected, they link up, they work together and that is what makes the difference to the people that are accessing the services. 

I'm eternally grateful to all the staff; they have made a huge difference to our lives. This is coming from the heart because it's so easy to talk about something you feel so passionately about and that you really love. And I do love the hospice, I really do. I think they're wonderful.  

Story and images may not be published elsewhere without express permission from St Helena Hospice.