Dr. Liz O'Riordon: Surgeon, Patient, and everything full of life!

Discover the empowering story of Dr. Liz O’Riordan, a breast cancer surgeon turned patient, who talks about the truth behind her dual identity in the realm of medicine. Our latest episode takes you through Liz's personal transition, delving into her fight against the very disease she once treated. As she navigates the stormy seas of breast cancer, her early retirement due to treatment complications, and the sexism she faced in her career, Liz holds nothing back. She's turned her trials into a beacon of hope and understanding, using writing and social media to connect with and support others, while challenging myths that cloud the realities of living with cancer. She has written Co written The Complete Guide to Breast Cancer with Professor Trisha Greenhalgh and Under the knife, her own personal memoir.

Step into Liz's world beyond the hospital as she shares the joy she finds in exercise, her familial 'jar of joy,' and the therapeutic release of blogging and podcasting. It's an intimate glimpse into how she's reshaped her life around health and happiness, maintaining her identity through fitness endeavors like triathlons and icy river swims, while also indulging in the art of baking (I want that muffin recipe!). This episode is an inspiring look at how she balances self-care, connecting with a community that understands her struggle, and staying active in charitable work, all while advocating for the crucial link between fitness and health.

For those interested in what Palliative care looks like at home there is "The Last Kiss" (Not a Romance)
Available on Amazon now
 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Kiss-Romance-Carers-Stories/dp/1919635289/ref=sr_1_1?crid=13D6YWONKR5YH&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9._59mNNFoc-rROuWZnAQfsG0l3iseuQuK_gx-VxO_fe6DLJR8M0Az039lJk_HxFcW2o2HMhIH3r3PuD7Dj-D6KTwIHDMl2Q51FGLK8UFYOBwbRmrLMbpYoqOL6I5ruLukF1vq7umXueIASDS2pO91JktkZriJDJzgLfPv1ft5UtkdQxs9isRDmzAYzc5MKKztINcNGBq-GRWKxgvc_OV5iKKvpw0I5d7ZQMWuvGZODlY.fqQgWV-yBiNB5186RxkkWvQYBoEsDbyq-Hai3rU1cwg&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+last+kiss+not+a+romance&qid=1713902566&s=books&sprefix=The+Last+kiss+n%2Cstripbooks%2C107&sr=1-1

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:22

Hello and welcome back to Everything End of Life with me, jason Cottrell and guests. I'm going to kick off our interview with Dr Liz O'Reardon, who is a breast cancer surgeon. She was diagnosed 7 or 8 years ago and shares her experience of what that's like. Now you probably have heard of Dr Liz O'Reardon, if you haven't. She's an amazing character and she has been vlogging and blogging about what it's like to have breast cancer. She'd been diagnosed and then re-diagnosed, having been cleared, and that must be such a tricky thing. So I think you've listened to the interview, haven't you?

Speaker 2 1:13

I have, yes, and I hadn't realised, actually, that having cancer had stopped her then from being a surgeon.

Speaker 1 1:20

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:21

I didn't realise that bit at all, but she did share some secrets with us.

Speaker 1 1:25

Yeah, so that will be coming up shortly. So after the interview, we're going to talk about what the theme of this season of interviews is about. Now a clue is going to be in the recent most horrendous scandals of the funeral home in Hull when oh, you read this, didn't you? Where they were keeping bodies, not burying people, and charging people for funerals and that sort of thing. So that's coming up soon, but first let's have the interview with Dr Liz O'Reardon. Hello, dr Liz Reardon, and welcome to the podcast. It's nice to see you again.

Speaker 2 2:04

You too, david.

Speaker 1 2:05

Thank you. We haven't spoken since before Christmas and I'll just stop you there because everybody calls me Jason. I know it's David on everything I do, but everybody calls me Jason. I won't go into the long story. So yeah, thanks for coming on the podcast Now. I still can't quite believe that there isn't anybody in Britain that doesn't actually know who you are. But for those people who don't, could you just give us a quick rundown of who you are and what you're all about?

Speaker 3 2:38

Yeah, so I guess I'm known as the breast surgeon who had breast cancer. In 2015, when I was 40, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and I ended up having all the treatments my patients had Chemo, mastectomy, reconstruction, radiotherapy, the works and I realised how little I knew and I wrote a book the Complete Guide to Breast Cancer just to answer all the questions. I had to get information in one place so you didn't have to scroll the internet. Thank you very much, unnecessarily.

Speaker 3 3:06

And then I went back to work for a year, which is really tough, and then my cancer came back on my chest wall, so I had surgery and radiotherapy to treat that, but it meant my left arm didn't work properly and I was forced to retire. And I kind of ended up on social media doing talks and videos as a new way to help people, explaining all the questions people have, debunking myths. It led me to write my memoir under the knife, which came out last year, talking about my work, how hard is to train to be a doctor as a woman in a man's world, the bullying, the harassment, the depression. And then I got to a second recurrence the day before the memoir came out last year.

Speaker 3 3:43

But I'm now, yeah, that is the book. Yes, that is it.

Speaker 1 3:46

It's not as a difficult to put down book, I've got to tell you.

Speaker 3 3:50

There's an awful lot of laughter and tears and fun and sadness, and just what it's like to actually train to be a surgeon, to actually cut someone open and then to get the one illness you spent your life training to treat.

Speaker 1 4:02

Well, yeah, I mean it's an incredible journey, but also I mean that very thing that you're very open about all of the things that were problematic. So you know, as you said before, the sexism and the blocks to have got going forward in that, and that's a very honest thing to do. So let's just kind of go back, if I can, Right to when you were diagnosed In fact before you were diagnosed because I remember as a kid running around trying to be Batman and Spider-Man and wanting to save the world. So I'm kind of thinking you wanted to become a doctor. When was it in your mind somewhere back then that made you think I want to save the world?

Speaker 3 4:45

I always wanted to be a doctor. My dad was a surgeon and a GP, my mum was a nurse. There was nothing else I wanted to do, and the minute I walked into an operating theatre I knew this is it.

Speaker 1 4:55

It wasn't scary, then it wasn't scary.

Speaker 3 4:57

No, no, I mean, you get used to the smell. There was something magical about talking to a person thinking they may have bowel cancer, examining them, finding a lump, operating on them, taking it out and making them better. I just loved it. I couldn't be bothered with medicine and tinkering around with drugs. I just loved that really making a difference.

Speaker 1 5:17

That really specific surgery.

Speaker 3 5:19

Yeah, and I love breast surgery. There's no out of hours work, there's no body fluids, your patients don't die on you and it's creative because every breast is different. So that's like my dressmaking skills coming in. You get a really nice relationship with them and it was just the best of all worlds. It's an incredible career.

Speaker 1 5:35

It's funny, isn't it? Sometimes you just find that one thing that really does it for you.

Speaker 1 5:40

I know I mean I've had a very varied and odd career, but the one thing that really I think when all my skills came together was working in end of life care and being able to make patients and relatives feel better, you know, using my communication skills and all of those skills I had up until that time. But I kind of think you didn't become a doctor and then become a surgeon like that. So it must be quite a tricky journey, as you said in your book.

Speaker 3 6:10

You know there was lots of 20 years yeah, 20 years 20 years, from going to medical school to becoming a consultant surgeon, having to do a PhD to get enough points on a CV to get appointed for a senior training job as a female, which instill a male world, the sexual harassment, the bullying, the negative criticism, the loneliness when you move from one side of the UK to the other and leave your friends and family behind. An awful lot of sacrifices made in this belief that this is the only thing you want to do and it's worth giving up that to become a surgeon. Thank you.

Speaker 1 6:44

But yeah, I mean it is. It's that thing, isn't it? We all know what a perfect world should be, but we haven't got one. And and especially when it comes to the sexism and there's racism as well, you know, when we have nurses and doctors coming from abroad, as a whole Plethora of things that we should still be, you know, we should be way ahead of by now completely.

Speaker 1 7:06

Yeah, but we're not so okay, so let's jump them forward to the 2015. You could diagnose yeah, I mean, chop, chop, horror, horror. I mean what that that was it must have been an incredible moment. Apart from that particular moment and here I don't want to really concentrate too much on the breast cancer side and treatments and things, but more about you and how that affected you so yeah. That must have been such such a blow, if you like.

Speaker 3 7:37

It's a real. I didn't think I had cancer. I had felt the lump and it looked like a breast. This did my surgeon wasn't convinced it was a cancer. My mammogram was normal, which can happen. I had a sneaky cancer. I then had an ultrasound and I looked at the screen because I do them myself and I say this all the time. I saw a cancer. I didn't need to wait for biopsy. My surgeon came in. She trained me, she was a friend and a mentor and she said right, you, do you want to treat you? Before we done the biopsy, we knew, I Knew. I knew I need a mastectomy, I need chemo. I had a good idea what my chance of being alive in 10 years was and Suddenly I have all this information. I've looked after women like me who died. How much of that do I tell my husband and my parents, because they don't need to know it.

Speaker 1 8:20

Well, that's just stop you there. Yeah, it's really really important that one decision, because I'm known doctors, in Psychiatry, for instance, that have suffered from quite a you know a series of mental illnesses themselves, so depression and anxiety, but they've kept it absolutely to themselves, not wanting to lose the facade, if you are not even maybe wanting to become deregistered because they've been needed to having a yeah, but that's like me had to consider.

Speaker 3 8:48

Well, I had suicidal depression twice as a consultant surgeon. You go, I say in the book. It's why I wrote the book to talk about this. I was terrified that my patients might find out or my colleagues would, and no one wants to be treated by the crazy doctor. I was embarrassed that I was depressed when I tell my husband I've been signed off work for six months. It came out of the blue. I did it from him. That was me not realizing I was as ill as I was. But that shame, that stigma, that fear. You think you're fine and I think we're getting better now at talking about mental health and helping people realize yeah, with this. I remember ringing my mom telling her I'll be telling you I've got cancer in a week and she said don't be silly, no, I will. I gave her the warning shot.

Speaker 3 9:30

And when I did and I was talking about chemo. She says you sound like you're talking about another patient. Why aren't you upset? And I think that was my way of dealing with the information I had. I wanted to tell someone. I know what this means, but it's not my family, because they don't need to know that fear.

Speaker 1 9:47

But I can't Unknow it so we sort of kind of keeping it clinical, as it were.

Speaker 3 9:51

Yeah, it's a bit like, if you're a problem your washing machine breaks. You know how bad it could be, but you don't want the wife to know because it's that's Ha, ha, ha, ha ha. Do you know that? That kind of a thing?

Speaker 1 10:01

That's a lovely way of putting it.

Speaker 3 10:02

Yeah, I think, and then I started the years worth of treatment which changed my life completely With no idea whether I'd ever go back to work again. Really hard.

Speaker 1 10:14

So when was the decision that you were gonna have to retire? You're gonna have to jump? Yeah, so, because that's the thing that you have to move, just said absolutely loved it was your life. Yeah and then it's just that, swept away.

Speaker 3 10:27

It was my life. There was very little outside of it and when I was off chemo I had nine, five months of chemo. Then I had surgery and radiotherapy. I suddenly realized I had no life outside of surgery. My friends still live miles away. I had no hobbies. It was all work, work, work, work, work, work. And I went back.

Speaker 3 10:47

I shadowed Consultants at a local hospital because they would be able to say, no, you're good enough or no, you can't do it. Psychologically could I cope and physically could I do the job again, but it was really hard. I didn't want to operate on anyone in case. I gave him the pain I had and every time I broke bad news it was like I'm seeing what I look like. When I crumbled my husband next to me, I had a nodule of scar tissue by my implant and I just thought it was scar tissue and I was gonna get rid of my implant because it was giving me a lot of pain. And my surgeon said let's just scan this lump two and a half centimeter cancer.

Speaker 3 11:20

I'm a breast surgeon. I didn't know what that was and I never went back to work. I Got the results of the biopsy and I rang my boss and said I'm his, come back. And I did know what was gonna happen and it ended up that the treatment that I had meant my aunt worked properly and I couldn't operate and I didn't choose to leave that way. There wasn't a big leaving party with big do, it was just like she didn't go back. I don't remember my last operation I didn't leave on my terms and suddenly Having to find myself as a breast surgeon for all my life, I no longer was one and I no longer have a purpose. So what do I do with myself? And that was really, really hard.

Speaker 1 12:01

That's I mean, that's really interesting. I was talking to Martin Rodis from Cruise CruiseBreather.

Speaker 3 12:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 12:09

He's talking about the grieving brain, and so it's not just about when we lose someone, but when we lose something like you've just described, your brain has to reset completely and you keep going back to the same old routines, but they're not there.

Speaker 2 12:24

No.

Balancing Life and Health Through Podcasting

Speaker 1 12:25

So how do you so creating? So is this? Can I ask what maybe prompted you to start doing the podcasts, the blogs, the? It was the kind of like a new identity thing, was that?

Speaker 3 12:39

So the blog? That was my husband's idea. He thought whilst you're off you could start a blog, just more for your family to know what's going on, cause my brother lived in Switzerland, my parents have moved to Scotland and writing for me was a way for it to sink into my head. It's actually happening and I found I could express myself. Plus, quite a few blogs at the time were scary, like slash, poison, burn, and I didn't want to be extreme or exaggerate. I wanted doctors to know what it was like to go through it from what I hope would be a fairly sensible, balanced opinion. And that blog got a lot of traction, not just from patients but doctors and nurses, and that led to me being invited to go and do a TEDx talk. Yeah, I saw that that was. That was quite impressive.

Speaker 1 13:18

And I'm going to stop you again if I'm not, because there was something I just wanted to pick up on, that was the at the end of it you bring up. I've done no spoilers or anything but there's, I think, the jar of joy.

Speaker 1 13:29

I mean that was just such a brilliant thing and it prompted me before Christmas to start thinking about how do we do that as a family and there's four of us, plus we've got a Ukrainian and a little boy over there that just moved out and I saw I came up with this idea that every Thursday, the first Thursday of every month, we just put down one line each in a book about what was great about the last month. Just one thing Doesn't have to be a big thing, just that last thing. And then at the end of the year, when it comes to the new year it's part of that day we'll just read those out to each other and recap what the year was about. So that's really, and the jar of joy was just that tripped that whole thing off and it was, you know. So we've started to do that, you know. So thank you for that.

Speaker 3 14:13

It's like, even on your worst days you can bring someone joy, even if you've got a half an hour of pain. It's amazing what you can do. But then I tell Twitter. The day after I was diagnosed I thought I'm gonna be recognized in my own hospital. I don't hide the fact that I've got cancer. I'm not embarrassed. And Professor Trish Greenhouse DMed me to say I've got breast cancer. Nobody knows we're having chemo on the same day and I went oh my God, you're my hero, your stats, but got me through my surgical exams. Between us as educated doctors, we bought 20 books for it by patients because he was desperate to find out what it was like to be a patient and so much misinformation and patients desperate for knowledge. So we started writing that book, which led to me writing for newspapers, the Instagram and the blogging. The podcast happened because when I wrote my memoir, publishers said no one will buy it because you only have 2000 followers on Instagram. We need to market you.

Speaker 3 15:07

So I thought right okay, I'm gonna start making videos. I'm gonna get the following up, a crowdfunded the book in 10 days. And then I thought well, some people like listening and I like talking, so let's try podcast. People ask me questions. I will answer them for you, just as another way of helping as many people as I can. And it's hard because I get one or 200 questions and comments a week and I can't give personal advice and I'm volunteering my time for free and I spend eight hours researching a YouTube script to make sure it's accurate. But the doctor in me still needs to help people.

Speaker 1 15:41

Yeah, yeah, I can see that, and that's it's interesting because when I first contacted you I was expecting kind of naively to contact the doctor, and then I got the secretary and the diary and thought hang on, in this next month you've got one or two half hours free.

Speaker 3 16:02

And I thought you need to get an idea of what your life must be like.

Speaker 3 16:07

I don't have a regular schedule and I could do work for other people all day Very, very easily. And I'll realize I've not been to the gym or I've not walked the dog so I've not been swimming in a river and I didn't have time for me or to do my own. I'm writing my third book at the minute, so I think I have Tuesday afternoons to do work for other people, because otherwise it take, and I've had to be that organized and I've got a virtual PA who's just helped, so I know that's my afternoon for stuff for other people. I can only work part-time. I'm exhausted on the cancer treatment and it's just my way of saying you have to have boundaries, otherwise you give, give, give, give, give and there's no time for you.

Speaker 1 16:43

That is really something I also wanted to come to. So it's a question of balancing. So there's things that are important to you and it's not just the work, it's not just the social media, and exercise is one of those things. My daughter last year made me start doing the couch to 5K Brilliant. Well, no, it's actually a couple of years ago now and I got up to doing the 5K and it was absolutely fine, and then I went to 10K and she said, no, bored now. So I was left hanging, yeah, doing 5K, and just recently she's got me into doing the gym, going to the gym Brilliant yeah.

Speaker 1 17:22

So then we've done a week and she's I think she might have gone off the idea, I'm not sure, but I quite hooked into it. Yeah, so, and now you do that, you do running and running for charity you've done and track loans and cycling it yeah. An amazing amount of stuff, and so the question I want to ask you is that relationship between exercise and your general health. I mean, obviously it's an important thing for general health, but what I'm getting at is, how important is that to aiding your cancer treatment, for instance?

Journey Through Fitness and Food

Speaker 3 17:58

I'm going to let you into a secret, jason. I did no exercise at school. I can't hit, catch or throw a ball. I did a bit of swimming. I had shoulders out here from racing butterfly. I would join a gym every year, moved to hospital and I'd go once and give them two grand. I didn't do exercise when I started dating my husband. I became a cycling widow and I thought if I don't get a bike on there to see him and I, I've done a bit of swimming. I I ran the London marathon when I was 30, very, very slowly, but my 40s is coming up.

Speaker 3 18:27

So my husband signed me up to do a triathlon because he thought I should. So I kind of I got drought kicking and screaming into sport In my late 30s, early 40s and I just was starting to love it. And then I got diagnosed with cancer. Yeah, and no one told me to exercise. We didn't really have the the evidence that we do now.

Speaker 3 18:45

But I did a sprint triathlon halfway through chemo, very, very slowly in a pool because I knew it would make me feel good and I had to promise if I get sick I'll stop. And the year after treatment I did the ride 100 and tandem with my husband and I swam two miles of the serpentine into half Ironman, just Really. Really slowly though because my immune system was broken, but it was that sense of achievement. It doesn't matter if I'm last, I've done it and when I'm exercising I'm just Liz. I'm not a cancer patient and we know Exercise can have the risk if you're getting all the major cancers and helps with all the side effects, it reduces the risk of recurrence, but I fall off. I fell off the wagon for six months when mum died last year. Someday it's really hard to get out of a habit. But I'm now back in the gym on the bike and it just it makes me feel good. It's just my time for me in the week. And open water swimming I one of those crazy people swimming in ice rivers.

Speaker 1 19:35

Yeah, that's crazy. That's really great. I have friends who do the Christmas dip in the sea and I do know what I am tempted next year.

Speaker 3 19:45

You must the sense of adrenaline you get. It's the craziest buzz in the world.

Speaker 1 19:49

It's like a real high, the natural high you see that guy doing I can't remember his name. He does the ice Challenge, where you know they're in ice yeah, norway or so, I don't know where they are and they flung into pools of ice and and stay there you know and I, the time you can see the buzz you get from that.

Speaker 3 20:06

Once you get over the fear, yeah of it must be quite I'm only in for a couple of minutes and then I sit and have tea and cake with my friends on the river about. Half an hour afterwards, so you know it's really much better about it now.

Speaker 1 20:18

Yeah, I like that idea.

Speaker 3 20:20

Coffee and cake in a quick skinny dip in a river when no one's watching.

Speaker 1 20:25

Yeah, mind you careful about the state of the water in in some that's true.

Speaker 3 20:30

Yeah, we're lucky to have clean rivers near us.

Speaker 1 20:32

All right, now I'm gonna give something away here and it's. I was saying I was in the supermarket and I think I've told you this and it's just. You know, we're just some. There's a lady in front of the queue and she's kind of decided that she needed some more bits, just as she was paying.

Speaker 1 20:49

Yeah and did that thing which we all hate, where they just wander off to the back of the supermarket to get a Pack of biscuits or whatever it was. And I was left looking, chatting with the lady behind me, and she said what do you do? And I said well, you know, I do quite a few different things. We go.

Speaker 3 21:04

Yeah.

Speaker 1 21:05

But it came around to the podcast and she said, oh, you should get dr Lizzo really none. And I went I Possibly Cambridge in in the Oaks Hospital in Colchester and I said oh right, so you know quite well. It's well. Yeah, yeah, and it really annoyed because I can't remember a name, because it was just that fleeting conversation, yeah, one thing that she did that slip. Was you're really good at making muffins?

Speaker 1 21:33

Oh, I am so, so that that's the next thing I wanted to come on to was was food. Who in your house does it for cooking? Liz?

Speaker 3 21:41

so my mum taught me to bake and I'm a baker. I bake bread, I bake cakes, I bake biscuits. That's my thing, my husband is and also I. If it says 273 millilitres of white wine, that is exactly how much. I'm all poring a recipe and I believe Recipes are exact. Do not mess, do not fiddle. My husband splosher and a poorer. Yeah, jamie Oliver says put a glug of olive oil. How big is a glug? It's like a teaspoon, or like half a litre, I don't know. And my husband and I'll be cooking and it's like put this in how much I can't cope. So he's I'm basically gravy and puddings and he does everything else. Yes, during chemo, when I lost my sense of taste, I couldn't make gravy because I had no idea what it tasted like. And I'll ask him how long do you cook the joint of beef? Or he said until it's done, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but temperatures and yeah, you need your probe for the probe.

Speaker 3 22:35

But I'm like, no, I follow recipe, but I'm a, I'm a baker, that that's.

Nutrition and Cancer Myths

Speaker 1 22:39

That's why do well, one day Maybe I'll get to taste these amazing muffins.

Speaker 3 22:43

It's just well, they're down leopards book. Short and sweet, they're his chocolate muffins and they are far better than anything you'll get in Starbucks.

Speaker 1 22:50

Then I'm just writing that down down leopards cookbook.

Speaker 3 22:54

Short and sweet, and they his chocolate muffins short and I add fudge and white and dark chocolate chip Chunks to them. Okay you make them in a saucepan and then, and then put them in the oven. They're really easy.

Speaker 1 23:05

One of my daughters will absolutely adore that. The other one doesn't like chocolate, which is, in my sense, it's own disability, to be honest, you know, because she goes out and a boyfriend doesn't know what a buyer. So you know, it's like every Easter comes around like Harry bow again, you know yeah.

Speaker 1 23:21

So that's a bit of a tricky one, okay. So, apart from that, are there Foods that you I mean, if we're talking about cancer, we might as well add this beer Are there foods that, to you, are really important, that help? I mean this foods we talk about and lifestyles. We talk about not smoking and all that, just not overeating and getting obese etc. But are there foods that actually promote health, or is that because there's a lot of quackery out?

Speaker 3 23:48

there is, and actually I'm doing a podcast tomorrow with dr Claire shore, who is the Marsden consultant dietician for 35 years. Okay, I never told patients what to eat after breast cancer because I assume they knew you just carry on eating a normal diet. But I've I've had over a hundred questions and women wanting to know should I have this, should I have this? What about the queta diet? What about the superfood supplements? Most of it is BS. The World Health, world Health Organization, recommends that you eat a mainly pumped best diet full of a rainbow of fruit and veg, liberty and red meat and Process sugary things, which is a normal diet, if anybody. There is no cancer diet. There are no cancer fighting foods. There are no cancer fighting supplements. Most people flogging the juicing green diets Living longer because they stop eating crap and they're actually eating a lot more fruit and veg. Yeah, and if you eat a lot of fruit and veg, you may feel healthy as you. You may do more exercise.

Speaker 1 24:43

Yeah.

Speaker 3 24:45

There is no magic cure. You just need to cook most of your food yourself most of the time and then 20% have what you like. Because life's hard, you'll need a biscuit ridgid and tonic every once in a while.

Speaker 1 24:55

Yeah, absolutely, but people make money.

Speaker 3 24:58

This guy is making millions of dollars Cook books and courses and they're saying I'm a cancer patient. I know the truth. You should only get information from a certified dietitian.

Speaker 1 25:08

Well, one of the things that you came across which I just was like my jaw dropped was in. It was one of your little TikTok things that said yeah do bras give you breast cancer? Yes, and I thought oh my God, really, is that really somebody's putting?

Speaker 3 25:23

it in there. Yeah, that's actually a cancer-free bra.

Speaker 1 25:29

Essentially Is that.

Speaker 3 25:30

It started in the book written in the 1960s by two anthropologists of a very back study who assumed underwires are compressing breast tissue which is stopping toxins draining, so the toxins go to the lymph nodes, just then give you breast cancer. Okay, bs. But there were now companies selling. Why free bras to cure breast cancer? Getting women to do this? It's rubbish. Like sports bras cause breast cancer because they're compressing your breast tissue. Deodorants cause breast cancer because they're blocking the sweat glands. It's all rubbish.

Speaker 1 25:58

You know I'm thinking about this and I was thinking, if I wanted to sell a brand, okay, what I'll do is I'll tell people that actually, it's rabbits in your garden that are causing breast cancer. And therefore, I have this rabbit repellent spray. Yeah, if you buy it from me and spray your garden once a week, there's only enough for two weeks in the can, by the way.

Speaker 3 26:19

Oh yes.

Speaker 1 26:20

Then you have to. Then that will save you from getting stuck level.

Speaker 3 26:23

It is and the Frazing us, the testimonials which could be written by chat, gpt, with stock photos off the internet. There's no proof. They never tell you the failures. Nothing in life is 100% accurate. They don't say this diet works in 90% of the time. Here's the guy that didn't raise your Dr Wood and I think when you've got cancer you're desperate for hope and desperate for control. Yeah, and you want. If someone is promising you a cure when your doctor isn't, you will spend that money.

Speaker 1 26:49

I mean, that's the actual thing, isn't it? Because unless you've had that diagnosis, I imagine for us it's quite. It's academic. You know, we can see that logically, that's just ridiculous, yeah. But when it's actually you've got that diagnosis and it's You're irrational. It's a different and you'll know both sides of that story.

Speaker 3 27:08

You become irrational. Yeah, my mum said, if my cancer before she died, if your cancer comes back, I'll crowdfund 50 grand to send you to a clinic in Mexico, because if they've cured one person, they might cure you.

Speaker 1 27:18

That's Ah.

Speaker 3 27:21

And I get it. It's that I'll do anything to stop you dying. And your doctor says they can't. But this guy in Mexico says yes, and it's that feeling of I want some control and some hope back.

Preparing for End of Life

Speaker 1 27:29

Okay, listen. There's one last thing I want to kind of go through with you because I think it's quite important. I mean this is, you know, the podcast is Everything End of Life, and one of those things is preparing for that. That you know, the ultimate goodbye.

Speaker 2 27:44

Yeah.

Speaker 1 27:45

And is that something you've been able to look at and to go? Well, you know, do I get things in place for that?

Speaker 3 27:53

Yeah, I didn't have a will and I only talked about wills with my husband when my cancer came back the first time and I had to get him to admit that I might die before him because he was very much, you'll be fine. You'll be fine, I'll die before you. I'm 10 years old. And he said no, and we finally talked about that we might die and where do you want to be buried in funerals. And we got all that at the last impasse maternity done. I've thought about my death a lot where I want to die. As a doctor, I've seen bad deaths, the deaths I'm called to as part of the research team of hospitals. I haven't seen a lot of the beautifully palliated deaths in hospital. I've done a lot of work and talking about how good it can be and how we can help hospitals become a home from home when you can't get home.

Speaker 1 28:31

Yeah.

Speaker 3 28:32

And it's the five senses. For now, when mum died and if you don't know you're dying until you're really poorly, your last meal may just be like a warm protein shake or some cold porridge and I want to be able to say I want my last meal to be a square of cold chocolate and a gin and tonic or something, and it's like the last thing. I want to be able to hear birdsong before I die. But if I don't, know I'm dying. I can't ask anyone to get me outside or open a window.

Speaker 2 28:54

Yeah.

Speaker 3 28:55

And I think we need to talk about death and dying in schools. It's going to happen. You need to be prepared. You can change your wishes, but like talking to my parents during COVID, do you want to be resuscitated if they put you on ITU? And it's a hard discussion to have, but we all need to have it.

Speaker 1 29:10

Yeah, absolutely. This is something we do in the community when we're going to people's home. But ostensibly for the last four weeks. It could be six, two months could be a long time, but we don't want people to have to shove it down their throat, as it were, to say, but to generally say are there things that you want when that time comes? How do you want that and try to encourage the family to have those discussions, but you've got to be so really technical.

Speaker 3 29:45

I do, and a lot of family members, yeah, and a husband may want a thing but their husband may want another thing. It's really really hard. But it's like think of all the classes that go into giving birth. Yeah, I think how much goes into dying.

Speaker 1 30:04

Yeah, I mean, this is one of my real annoyances is the, the huge amount of money that we put into Birth and and the whole living experience and trying to be the best that we can, but having a beautiful death. It's just left to hospice charities and it's not. It's not valued, and yet that's possibly.

Speaker 3 30:24

You know it's, it's the finale of the movie, it's the to know, you know, and it's like palliative care is still that scary thing that, oh my god, if they refer you they're dying. No, I could have been for ten years ago because I I've had cancer. It's just changing people's expectations and education and saying you need to think about this and write it down somewhere.

Speaker 1 30:42

Well, that's right. I think it is a. You know, it's very much a cultural thing, because, you know, when we go into the patients, we're not sending black people, jewish people, muslim people, because they're all. They're looking after themselves in a completely different way and different cultural ideas.

Speaker 3 30:57

And. Yeah, yeah, definitely, so, definitely so, but if they end up in a hospital and their family aren't there to help them.

Speaker 1 31:03

The doctors still need to know and have those discussions, and it's I mean, when you look at the training that goes into doctors Dealing with Muslim people at the end of life and the rituals that they Adhere to, and if they're in a hospital and nobody knows what they are, I mean I'm what a scary, frightening thing that is. I mean we need to have cultural education in in medicine at the end of life as much as anything else you know.

Speaker 3 31:29

We do. You want to respect everybody's last wishes, but they need to know what they are. They need to have thought about it first, so I'm hoping we're gonna get there.

Speaker 1 31:37

Yeah, okay, well, listen, liz, it's been. You know, as I knew it would be pretty amazing speaking with you again.

Speaker 3 31:44

Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1 31:44

No, it's been awesome. I don't know there's gonna be. Lots of people have asked me you know, wins that podcast coming out and I said, well, look, you know, you just gotta be patient. You know, yeah, hopefully I'll. You know I'm gonna pop this way out and one out in February. But what I wanted I have to do blocks of three or four, five or six. So I mean, during the winter I I get seasonal effective disorder like a few people and I just get brain fuzz. You know I can't organize myself properly. And and when that? You know, when that day comes of the shortest day has been and gone. It's a weird thing. I literally started going hang on, I got to do this. I can go. I've got that on my mind map. I've got things I'm gonna start doing and it starts to come back.

Speaker 1 32:31

I mean, I think possibly quite a lot of us, you know, during the winter, just go.

Speaker 3 32:36

Yeah, I know there's no sunlight. It's cold as miserable. Yeah, come out of hibernation now, beginning there.

Speaker 1 32:42

Yeah, again, I'm beginning to cook again, so yeah, oh, what do you cook now? All right. Well, last Sunday we had family around so I did as a starter a little comfy potato with a pigeon breast and peas four ways. So that would have been Puree, just normal. Peas on top, buttered with a pea, lime sort of puree underneath and pea shoots and when you invited me for dinner.

Speaker 3 33:12

I.

Speaker 1 33:15

Don't know what's amazing is. When you put it on a nice plate, a little black black, it looks so much better. You know you get away with a lot with that. I think that sounds amazing yeah no, I love the cooking is a real hobby for me. I love the food art of it also, so I try not to cook too much, Otherwise you know I put on so much weight in there.

Speaker 3 33:35

And it's the washing and the cleaning, isn't it when you use every utensil in the kitchen?

Speaker 1 33:39

Oh well, I try. Yeah, it's um. I'm a great one for washing as I go. Oh, good man that that kind of slows down towards the end of my cooking. My wife takes Debbie, she takes over, and so I'll panic wash for you. You know, just get that sort of you know. Well done, well done. Okay, let's observe him now service.

Speaker 1 33:57

Yes, so there we go, but yeah, all right. Well, once again, thank you so much, and I hope we get to speak again. I've got to say I've also got a book coming out sort shortly, but it's self-publishing thing, because, yeah, you know, because I'm not famous the publishing industry is broken. It's well. Yeah, it's a tricky one to break into, but you know, and it's called the last kiss, but it just describes what we do in the community, you know, and and just Going into people's homes, yeah, I'd love to see a copy.

Speaker 3 34:29

It's really important work you guys do, jason, oh.

Speaker 1 34:32

I'll do, mate. I'll put one in the post for you. We're not a problem. All right, brilliant, well, thank you very much. And I'll speak to you again soon. Bye, bye, bye. Well, what an amazing interview that was. I just love Liz. She's brilliant. So, deb. The next thing we've got coming up will hopefully be Tim Leeson, who is a spiritual leader of a hospice. You haven't met him yet, have you?

Speaker 1 35:00

No I haven't no, we haven't done this interview yet, but it's going to come up very shortly and it's interesting to discover what a spiritual leader is, and it's not somebody who tries to push religion upon you. So there's a clue. Okay, we're also and this is from the clue at the beginning going to be talking to Claire Montague from Poppy's Funerals, who will be talking about Poppy's Funerals and about how they care for their clients and why there's a lack of professional standards in the whole funeral industry. You'd be really surprised and, as I said, we had that real bad scandal about the funeral home in Hull, but apparently that's just the tip of the iceberg. So the industry, whilst I hope, is 99% kosher and brilliant, there is a few bad apples in the funeral service and it is a business. So you can imagine that there'll be some good practices and some bad practices.

Speaker 2 36:04

But how do you choose If you've just lost a loved one which we did last year, for example and you need to have them taken care of? How on earth, apart from checking out the reviews on TripAdvisor, can you do that for funeral directors?

Speaker 1 36:21

Well, it's quite. Tripadvisor for funeral directors.

Speaker 2 36:24

Unless it's word of mouth you have no idea. They could be the best or the worst.

Speaker 1 36:27

Well, that's right. I mean, I think there is a lot of word of mouth and quite often in smaller communities people will know their funeral directors and they will have used them, their relatives will have used them and they usually family-orientated ones. But you're quite right, it's a regulation problem. But it's not just a regulation problem in funeral homes. When I look at carers, for instance, you get good and bad carers, good and bad care firms, and that is not as regulated as perhaps it could have been. Or also in the end of life care.

Forthcoming Book

Speaker 1 37:04

In my book there should be an NVQ for palliative care carers. There should also be an NVQ for people caring for other people with muscular dystrophy, for instance. But it's amazing how much money we put into the beginning of life, into birth and all the industries trying to throw money into making profit, if you like, out of that very emotive beginning of life, and how little there is about the end of life. And that is the theme that we are going to be exploring a lot more in this particular season over the spring and early summer. Also, I'm going to start giving you some details, hopefully in the next interview, about the forthcoming book that I've got coming out, called the Last Kiss, not a Romance which explores palliative care and the first early days I had of working as a palliative care carer, with a team going in for the last four weeks, and you'll remember that when it's four years ago now, I read through it very well.

Speaker 1 38:12

And being so surprised at how incredible these ladies were and how caring they were and how professional they were at looking after people in the last four weeks not just people, but also their relatives. So that's coming up soon. I hope you've enjoyed this particular interview and I look forward to hearing from you, either by email djcatrellathotmailcom, that's with one T and two Ls or on the Facebook page or any other medium you can find me on. Yeah well, good luck, and if you like it, subscribe and gives Debs a shout out. Hello, okay, thanks very much for listening.