Care at Christmas: 'Severn Hospice's art therapy helped me through my cancer ordeal'

"I drew a picture of my daughter and some of my close friends in an outdoor environment," she recalls.

"It was my friend's allotment, and I could see everybody else getting on with their lives, but I couldn't get on with my life."

Wendy, a 61-year-old mother-of-one from Lilleshall, had just been diagnosed with cancer for the third time in her life, and was taking part in her first art therapy session at Severn Hospice's Apley Castle site in Telford.

"I was just explaining how I was feeling," she says. "It surprised me, it was the first time I was able to talk about it."

Just weeks earlier, Wendy, the former chief executive of a West Bromwich-based charity, had received the devastating news that her pancreatic surgery had returned, five years after she had surgery to remove it. 

"It was like a punch in the gut," she says.

"There's a sense of numbness, but also shock and fear, all rolled up together. It's like it's not really you, but you're watching somebody else."

The diagnosis was followed by eight months of gruelling chemotherapy, and she says the support from the hospice was crucial to her getting through that.

Wendy, who has a 27-year-old daughter, had no idea what to expect when she was offered a referral to the hospice.

"I was just offered a referral, and said I would take it, not really knowing what I thought," she says.

"I didn't realise a hospice did all the wellbeing stuff, I thought it was a place where people went for end-of-life care. I had never heard of art therapy, but I just went 'yes, refer me'."

Wendy says she had always been a creative type. 

"I knew I could draw, but when you find yourself driving to work in the morning, driving home at night, walking the dog, thinking about the kids, you don't really have time to be creative. Life just gets in the way, you just put it off until tomorrow. But when you get a diagnosis like this, you realise you can't keep putting off things until tomorrow, you need to do them today."

Wendy discovered she found it much easier to share her thoughts while drawing: "It gives you a point of focus, instead of sitting in a chair with somebody looking at you, you have something in front of you to talk about."

As the sessions progressed, Wendy began using her pictures to convey her inner thoughts. 

"I would be drawing all the time," she says. "When I was going through chemotherapy, instead of staring at four walls, I would sit and sketch whatever was going through my mind. Sometimes it would be just doodles, but I found it helpful."

One day a member of staff spotted her sketchbook, and came up with the idea of holding an art exhibition. In November, the idea became a reality, as her sketches went on display at the hospice's Bicton Heath centre in Shrewsbury.

"That really took my breath away," she says. "They put my sketches on display, with a few words underneath explaining them. 

"The feedback from that has been brilliant, without the therapy I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do that.

"We had friends and family of patients who said it helped them understand for the first time what their loved ones were going through." 

Wendy is expecting to receive the results of her scan in January,  and all being well, the chemotherapy will have paid off and she will be able to once more move on with her life and look to the future. She says her experience has made her realise just how important the hospice movement is to patients.

"So many people will have a diagnosis at some point in their lives," she says.

"The hospice does so much in helping them through that." 

To learn more about how you can support Severn Hospice's work, visit severnhospice.org.uk/support-us or telephone 01743 236565.