Therapy through humour for cancer sufferers
A hospital writing group with a difference teaches Jo Ind all about speaking the unspeakable – and putting it into print – to help cancer patients.
Hospital waiting rooms are not usually places echoing with the sound of laughter and applause but that is what is happening at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Cancer Centre in Birmingham.
Those who hold us enthralled have between them been through radiotherapy, chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants, mourned the loss of breasts and are living with on-going ovarian cancer. And still they laugh.
The event is the launch of a book called Being a Patient, which is a collection of prose and poetry written by people being treated for cancer at the centre.
The contributors were part of the cancer patients’ writing group, which was set up by Mandy Ross, a writer from Balsall Heath, after she had finished a course of treatment for cancer at the centre.
“Our aim was to write about cancer, to speak the unspeakable, and to try to make sense of the experience of illness and treatment,” says Mandy.
“We had a great experience writing together in a safe environment, with others who have shared a varied range of truly horrible experiences. We knew that no one was going to run away screaming if we mentioned the c-word.”
One the things that came out of the group was humour – ‘tumour humour’, as they came to call it.
“I was so angry and I was so terrified,” says Rhapsody Weatherall, a 43-year-old participant, who found out she had cancer two years ago. “It was being able to express all that emotion in a safe way. You don’t want to complain. You want to kiss the people that have saved your life but you need a place where you can release all those feelings and do it with humour to a degree.”
The group met once a month in the Shakespeare Memorial Room in the city centre, as part of the cancer centre’s arts programme. Everyone who took part said it had been an important part of recovery.
Ann Gallagher, aged 51, was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive type of ovarian cancer two years ago. She says: “It’s very hard for other people to understand if they haven’t experienced it. You wouldn’t want them to understand because that would mean they’d been through it.
“It’s really quite wonderful to go where there are other people who have experienced something similar and share it.
“Writing has been a big part of my recovery. It’s good to keep your mind active. It’s been good fun.”
“When you have cancer that’s all people see. They don’t see the whole person,” says Eddie Smith, a 52-year-old from Quinton, who has been through a bone marrow transplant. “We became this little community of people, going through similar experiences with different ideas and perspectives.”
Jonjo Rooney was diagnosed with leukaemia in December two years ago. “Just getting to the group was a big step compared to where I’d been,” says Jonjo, who has been through chemotherapy, radiotherapy and a bone marrow transplant.
“It was just good to express yourself in a different way. It’s very therapeutic from a patient’s point of view to be able to do that. I think it will be useful for other patients to see the book.”
Precisely because it is written by patients, the book highlights matters that are not normally addressed in a clinical environment. One of the striking themes to emerge is the relationships between the patients and the hospital staff.
Jonjo wrote about how he idolised his consultant much as others idolise a sportsman or a singer. In another he expressed his gratitude to the cleaner. Mandy wrote a poem called None of this is like a lover about women undressing as they waited to be seen.
The book has been published with funding from the Birmingham Core Skills Development Partnership and will be in waiting rooms so that other cancer patients can see it.
