It's got that reputation hasn't it? Switzerland runs like clockwork. Gold standard everything that leaves the rest of us, well, runners-up.

I've spoken now to so many people in so many different countries who all say post cancer treatment is basically a shambles. Country after country - the support that was your cancer patient life, gone in an instant. Yep. Gone. End. You fall off a cliff.

So this time I spoke to Catherine Schopfer and to quote her LinkedIn page "Cancer Coach | Advocate | Speaker | Helping individuals, caregivers & organisations navigate cancer with multilingual coaching, training & human-centred partnerships"

Not only has Catherine been a cancer coach for many years - that happened by chance - she did have breast cancer too. So if anyone can tell us how amazing state post cancer treatment can be, in what must be the perfect system it'll be Catherine.

And as I discovered, and you're about to hear, it's both a yes and a really big, But...

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Search for Catherine here.

https://onlinecancercoach.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-schopfer-cancer-coach/

And remember to connect with Mike at LinkedIn. He'll like that.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikekinnaird/

Toby Freeman founded the Robin Cancer Trust at 22 after losing his brother Rob to testicular cancer. Rob was 24, fit, healthy, and had been to the doctors multiple times. Sadly no-one connected the dots until it was too late.

What followed was fourteen years of talking — loudly, honestly, sometimes in a giant testicle costume — about the things young people aren't told and the conversations that don't happen. Fertility. Financial toxicity. The leaflet handed over when there's no time for anything else. And how leaflets are almost a guaranteed failure if you're trying to message young people - unless you're creative. The postcode lottery that determines whether a young person gets the right support at the worst moment of their life.

Toby pushed back on me when I said awareness was a waste of time. And yes, he was absolutely right to. But what he said next - that's the thing worth hearing.

This is Episode 50 of #CancerCanDoOne.

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How to contact Toby and find out more about support for young people.

• Website: www.therobincancertrust.org
• Instagram: @rctcharity

• Instagram: @tobytalksballs
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tobyfreeman

There's a side effect of cancer treatment that affects millions of people every year. It's permanent. It's devastating. And many patients, it seems, aren't told about it before treatment begins.

I had no idea this was happening. None. And I've been asking questions about cancer care for long enough that I should probably have known.

Anna Kirton is a Health Coach and Hearing Loss Advocate. She was born profoundly deaf in one ear. She knows what it means to navigate a world that wasn't designed with you in mind. But it was an oncologist's offhand question last year — do you realise some cancer patients lose their hearing due to chemotherapy — that stopped her cold.

More than 50% of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy experience hearing damage. Around 4 million people worldwide every year. Some caused by platinum-based drugs routinely used for ovarian, lung, bladder and head and neck cancers. Permanent. Often gradual enough that patients don't notice until it's already significant. And when treatment ends and they raise it — they're referred to an audiologist, fitted with a hearing aid, and told to get on with it.

"Survival or deafness? Pretty much", says Anna. That's the choice.

We talk about what that actually means for a real person going back to work, rebuilding relationships, working out who they are after cancer. Already carrying the weight of having been a patient. Now losing their hearing on top of it. Without warning. Without preparation. Without support.

Anna lost her first husband to cancer. She knows this world from more than one angle. I suspect she wishes she didn't...

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The following is a full transcript of this episode for anyone who is deaf, hard of hearing, or who prefers to read.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1puY4Ilkjq_7s_cwfFE9LgUxTUoBBdDCUbh6F5UrzEQ0/edit?usp=sharing

Anna would really like to hear from anyone affected by deafness following cancer treatment to assist both her and her collegues greater understabding of the issue and support needed.

Contact her on LinkedIn

Her website: Think Health Coaching