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Robin Daly
Hi and welcome to the Yes to Life show. My name’s Robin Daly and as well as hosting this show I’m also founder of Yes to Life, the UK’s integrative cancer care charity helping people find out about the benefits of integrative care. An approach that combines the best of both conventional oncology approaches and lifestyle and complementary approaches such as nutrition, exercise, mindfulness and physical therapy such as massage. I mention massage as that’s the subject of this week’s show. Serena Morgan is an experienced practitioner of what is now called oncology massage which in plain English means massage for people with cancer. I’m speaking to Serena over the internet. Thanks coming on the show today.

Serena Morgan
Hi, welcome, thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Robin Daly
Right, so we’re going to be talking about oncology massage. So it’s called oncology massage I imagine to make it clear that it’s intended for and safe for people with cancer Because I think it’s fair to say that massage has been kind of in mad in controversy for many years When it comes to people with cancer Rumors certainly used to abandon I suspect they still do that massage encourages the spread of cancer I don’t know who dreamt that one up. But anyway, it’s done the rounds, isn’t it? So look, let’s start right there as I’m sure you have to work with these rumors still and the fear that they generate So what do you tell people with cancer who are concerned about the safety of massage?

Serena Morgan
Massage is completely safe for those who are being treated for cancer and those who are post cancer treatment. And the statistics actually is so high that I think people also forget that those who are undiagnosed could be on my table. I could be somebody that find out they have a diagnosis in first place. Massage can be a way, massage can definitely, especially if you are with a professional who is looking at your symptoms, if you’re coming in and you are not just experiencing pain or back pain, but fatigue and nice works and other, we can, we can steer you and triage you back to a doctor or somebody to get checked. So in having that understanding as a massage therapist of cancer and of tumors, you can actually perform a very safe and very relaxing and very helpful massage for those who are going through treatment and those who are post cancer treatment to help with parts of pain and discomfort that they may have.

Robin Daly
Yeah, interesting. Yeah, I hadn’t really thought of this as a kind of diagnostics experience, but yes. I’m not diagnosing anybody. No, I know that, but you’re alerting maybe people to things they need checked out, but I mean how often have I heard it that somebody thought they had a musculoskeletal problem and actually it turned out to be cancer? Absolutely. And they were treated as though they had a musculoskeletal problem for a long time before it came to light, so obviously it can get misinterpreted to symptoms. So yeah, I can see how there’s a scope there.

Serena Morgan
and not just the musculoskeletal issues that people are coming in with, but also moles we’re looking at and seeing on the skin.

Serena Morgan
areas of the body that people don’t get to look at on a regular basis. So it’s yeah.

Robin Daly
How interesting. Yeah, I hadn’t really thought about any of that. Yeah, okay, so it’s a bit of a check out. All right. All right, good. Anyway, so we got that out of the way, although such is the nature rumors that it’ll be years before the fear and mess I was finally evaporated, I expect. Absolutely. Anyway, let’s get on to the good stuff. So, on your website homepage, you write, “…attentive, caring, non-selfish, consensual human contact is imperative to our physical and mental health.” So imperative is a pretty strong word to use. Would you tell us why you feel it’s imperative?

Serena Morgan
This comes from personal experience, so my experience of hands-on treatment has had quite a profound impact on my progression and rehabilitation and worth as a human being, and there’s a difference as well between having that safe, caring, nurturing touch to that touch that sometimes might feel a little bit more aggressive or a little bit more clinical. It might not be bad by any means, and I don’t want to put a negative connotation to massage, but just having that safe, caring, attentive touch with an experienced and skilled hand or lying finger can really determine how we recover from trauma or how we can be rehabilitated from injury, surgery, psychologically, emotionally and physically.

Robin Daly
Well, I can appreciate that. I’m actually completely with you. I think you’re right. And I think, yeah, COVID’s had a horrible impact on making people less touchy-feely. And, you know, I think human physical contact is the lifeblood of our feeling of being part of a community, of not being isolated, of having connection with other people. Even if there’s just a simple hand on the arm, like, you know, thanks a lot for doing that. Whatever it is, this stuff really matters. It’s part of our whole communication network to keep us connected.

Serena Morgan
What things lots of people do after giving birth is to have skin-to-skin contact with their child. Right, yeah. Then have skin-to-skin contact.

Robin Daly
Very much so, yeah. So don’t you know? OK, so I’m interested to see you’ve got a background in dance and performance, which some may think of as a very different area, but I suspect for you there’s a thread running through that world and the work of physical therapy. Maybe you could tell us.

Serena Morgan
Salutely, for sure. As a performing artist, I have been receiving massage, physio, osteopathy treatments my entire career, even as a student. In fact, it was at, whilst I was studying at a London contemporary dance school, there was an osteopath who was an anatomy teacher. So we learned all about the anatomy, and some physiology as well. So there is a definite connection between moving your body and having knowledge of your body, and living in this space. And then when that body fails you, in some ways, how to rehabilitate that body and how to look after that body. So yeah, I have, I have received a lot of manual therapy in my career. And I found it really interesting, always had a fascination with biotechnology, and with recovery, and with trauma, and with anatomy, and with puzzles. So combining, combining all of those together, seemed like I was moving from one to the next.

Robin Daly
So if you were to put your finger on a few things that you felt you learned the most from, from receiving physical therapy, what might they be?

Serena Morgan
um depth and pressure, timing and location whether you want to go to a more clinical setting or whether you’d like to go to a more therapeutic setting and have how that can have an impact on your psychological approach to your healing but definitely depth and depression how we’ll touch not just widely touched but how we’ll be in touch

Robin Daly
Interesting. And that’s a different setting in which you receive the therapy. I imagine that is very much a personal choice for people that, you know, I can imagine lots of people would much prefer a clinical setting because they see it. That’s the way they see it has been clinically helped, whether it helps them in other ways or not. But other people are right into a full touchy feely experience, you know, 360 degrees, correct?

Serena Morgan
Absolutely. And where I base myself can really determine what people’s expectations are.

Robin Daly
So if you put yourself in a clinical setting where people have a sort of clinical outcome in mind. Completely. Yep. Right. But I imagine it must be the case, though, for somebody who comes in for, they come into a clinical setting hoping to get, you know, some muscular problem fixed. Nonetheless, they’re still receiving you’re doing the same thing, no doubt. And doing exactly the same thing. The same thing. And so they must be receiving help on lots of other levels as well, which they may not even be aware of. For sure.

Serena Morgan
It’s very, very important to me that I take into consideration somebody’s mental and emotional state and well-being when I’m there.

Robin Daly
Yeah, maybe I can just you said all this stuff about depth and pressure Can I just check something out with you because I mean I’ve had various massage type treatments over the years and Yes, you know if you ask me what I’ve liked generally I like to have a pretty full-on massage, you know, I want somebody I don’t want somebody messing around I want them to get in there and do some stuff, you know And wish I’ve only once been to something over did it and I thought oh bloody that was just like brutal You know, but I like a strong massage, you know, but then again, I have been to somebody who did exactly the opposite It was just you know, almost not a massage I would say but it had a profound effect it really did affect me a lot and so it was I almost felt like The person was giving instructions to my parts my body to let go. That’s what it felt like. So it was extraordinary. So Tell me a bit about that

Serena Morgan
And so there’s many, many different massage techniques out there, but it’s a conversation. Right. Which is a conversation. We are beings that have many, many layers, starting with the skin and going all the way down to our viscera and our organs and our blood vessels and our veins. Everything is with everything else all the time in our body. You put your hands on somebody, that conversation translates to you and you can choose to listen or not. And it’s really important that you listen to that, to that highway or that, that frequency that’s happening in your hands. So sometimes just allowing, allowing the more superficial, the more connective tissues to sink into your, into your hands and allow them to guide your hands into the release that the body is ready to do. And it can be a very superficial, light, less depth massage. It almost feels as though there’s less depth to it. But actually, by manipulating those superficial tissues, you can actually reach a much deeper level and have structures much deeper. You can pick your hands on somebody and you can allow your hands to sink through the different layers of tissue, which then can allow your hands to have more of a direct connection to the tissues that you wish to have more of an impact on. So you can, you can reach, you can reach a much deeper place in the body. You can, you can reach a deep place in the body, regardless of whether you’re putting a lot of pressure on or not. It just depends also on the person that you are working with, how you can work with them. Where their sexual nervous system is, where, where they are sitting in relation to their social nervous system and the impact and change that you want to have on their body. And their mental state will also determine how deep you want to put your hands into somebody’s body.

Robin Daly
Well, I’m very interested to hear you talk about this two-way conversation like that and about the need to listen on both sides, you know, to what’s going on. Because in a certain kind of way, you know, being the recipient of massage can make you feel, you know, it’s a passive situation, but it’s not quite like listening, which is an attentive one, you know. So yeah, very interesting. I think you’re absolutely right. So yeah, it is a two-way conversation and obviously to get the best out of it, both these parties are listening.

Serena Morgan
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you can also have that connection as well with the person asking them to be more active. It doesn’t always have to be such a passive event for the person who is on the massage table, incorporating things like breath work to help release muscles and tissues as well. So it can be a much more active conversation if you want it to be. It doesn’t need to be so passive. Asking somebody to lay on a table and put your hands on them, it’s a very vulnerable position to be in. Yeah, right.

Robin Daly
Yeah, it’s quite unusual within the scope of what we normally do. Absolutely. Okay, so it’s also interesting to note that oncology massage is just one of a very broad range of therapies that you offer. So can you tell us about some of these and also about any specific training you’ve had to work with cancer?

Serena Morgan
Absolutely. My massage journey started very therapeutically. I spent four weeks in Nepal. in Kathmandu studying, studying Ayurvedic massage and Thai yoga massage. Love it. That was great.

Serena Morgan
It was amazing, and I continued that in Malaysia, but then when I was in London, based in London, I went to the North London School of Sports Massage and I did a level of Diploma in Sports and Remedial Massage. It was a very different approach to touching the body, coming from that Eastern to the Western. It was very different. So that was very exciting for me, and then I just got hungry. I really loved touching people’s bodies and I really loved the effects of it you could have on somebody physically and mentally, and I got really excited about that. So after studying sports and remedial, I read it and try yoga. I started then getting more excited on other techniques. So I started, I went to then my fashion copying and I did sports taping with an eziology tape. So and then I done medical acupuncture, I’ve done scar work and for oncology advanced scar work. And also, I’ve also, when it comes to the oncology side of things, I’ve done oncology massage and I have also done a certification in cancer rehabilitation with a carping and steel. Right.

Robin Daly
OK, so you’ve been soaking it up for a long time.

Serena Morgan
Absolutely. Still soaking it up.

Robin Daly
I can see why you the Ayurvedic side got you going in the first place So I think it’s fantastic that sort of drowned in oil and just having a great time. It’s like a marvellous So much oil. I had a week in South India where it I found I could afford to have one every day It’s just pure indulgence Yeah All right. So then one of the things I wanted to clarify is the differentiation between a simple massage and some of the more therapeutic methods and eventually it’s kind of a Spectrum that leads under things like osteopathy and physiotherapy somewhere at the other end there and Yeah, I just interests where people how people know where to place their individual needs How do they know what to go for in there? Because there’s quite a spectrum and lots of different things when you just talked of quite a few different approaches yourself

Serena Morgan
that’s a very interesting question. The service that I provide is not very well advertised. The integrative oncology is still really unadvertised. A lot of people don’t know about it. This is the approach. So a lot of people, my service, for example, which I brand as soft tissue therapy, because I have an array of so many techniques, I don’t necessarily just stick to massage or don’t just stick to scholar. I will assess the needs of the client at the time, or patient at the time, and see what it is they need and communicate with it. I also ask as a triage service to a lot of people who email and ask questions, because they don’t know what they want. Right. Exactly. So there is that sense that people do ask me, they do send an email. I will happily refer them on to the place that they need to go. But places like Macmillan and other fancy charities, and even Percy by Katie McCatt, have a really great way of advertising these services so that you can go online and you can see what it is that you need. And you can see the practitioners that are available. The oncologists usually stay more towards the osteopathy or the physiotherapy, because they are what they are available in private healthcare. Services like massage services like soft tissue are more of a self-funded service. So there’s something which can be really infuriating, because there’s a service that I can provide that is really going to help somebody.

Robin Daly
Yeah, I know you could say that the whole of integrated medicine is really infuriating that people aren’t being told about it So yeah completely with you there

Serena Morgan
long way. It’s come a very long way. It has, it has.

Robin Daly
got to acknowledge that if you look back 10 years, things are a lot better than they were. Yeah, for sure. But there’s a long way to go. Yeah. No, that’s exactly the kind of thing I wanted to know. I mean, obviously, somebody comes to you, they’ve got the advantage is that you’ve got such a broad skill set, you can actually give them what they need. But if somebody goes along to somebody who only does soft tissue massage, or sports therapy, or whatever it is, they might not be the right person for them. So, absolutely.

Serena Morgan
If you type in on Cottage Massage on Interfugal, there are directories, there are some Cottage Massage by Susan Finley, for example, that she has a directory of people who are trained in on Cottage Massage and you can go onto the site and you can search for people specifically that train in. And yeah, there are various directories online that you can search for practitioners that are specialised in oncology, whether it be for scar work, or for massage, or for soft tissue therapy, or for rehabilitation, or for physiotherapy, you can search for them online a little bit more on time.

Robin Daly
Yeah, that’s true and you can even search in our directory at YesToLife. Yes, you can. Massage is one of the things included at YesToLife, yeah. So, all right, that’s great. So, what would you say the key things that Massage got to offer to those with cancer, including, but also over and above, what it offers to anybody on the street? I mean, obviously Massage is great, but so include those, the benefits, but particularly what can it do for people with cancer? If you can give us a kind of brief overview and then we can look at some of them in a bit more detail.

Serena Morgan
Um, so for those who are experiencing cancer treatment, for example, it can be, um, it can help with your fatigue, your levels of sleep, um, improve your sleep. There’s a lot of people that struggle to sleep. Yeah. It can help with depression, help with, um, nutritional intake. And it can help with the psychological aspects of feeling alone. Um, that physical touch that we were talking about earlier, and you also solve it, not just emotionally, but physically as well. Um, it can also, for people who are post cancer treatment, um, it can reduce, uh, which is scar tissue and fibrosis that have been caused by, for example, radiation, um, it can help with the regaining range of movement. It can help to, again, which is scar tissue.

Robin Daly
How about peripheral neuropathy?

Serena Morgan
Or if all new, yes, it can absolutely help with that. So lately, um, it can also help with, uh, warding that, um, it’s warding that is quite determined after, um, mastectomy and it can help, it can help with lymphedema.

Serena Morgan
It can help promote healing. It can also, I mean, incorporating things like breath work and gentle exercises and home care for tissue release, it can help get people back to exercise and exercise is a fundamental part of rehabilitation.

Robin Daly
So that’s exactly what you are using it for and you’re with your dancing, of course. Yeah, and you’re right. Yeah, exercise is a key part of anybody’s cancer regime. Certainly should be. Yeah. Okay, that’s quite a list. Let’s pick out one or two of those and talk about them. We haven’t got time to talk about them all, but I mean, as a group, you could talk about these symptoms, which are like fatigue, sleep, depression, they all go a bit hand in hand. And yeah, difficult to deal with, of course, difficult to find ways to help. As to exactly why and how they help, massage helps with these things. Is there anything you could say?

Serena Morgan
People who are experiencing radiation therapy, chemotherapies, or cancer treatments are going through a variety of emotional states and depression and stress and anxiety can be one of those. And one of the things that massage can do is it can help regulate your hormones and it can do that by reducing for certain levels and improving your blood circulation, which is going to help nutritional uptake. It’s going to help with your energy levels and by giving you that comfort of massage, it’s going to help you see better. And as you see, which is fundamental to our healing, it’s also going to help your body through the process of taking that medication, whichever medication that may be. They all, like you say, they all go hand in hand. It’s very difficult to single any of one of them out.

Robin Daly
Yeah I think you could put in the same group loneliness and overall well-being. I mean they also go in with those as well, isn’t they? It’s a general, I mean put all together those are kind of state of wellness you could say. Absolutely, sure. Yeah when they’re all low you’re in a mess basically and not in the best place for getting well from anything.

Serena Morgan
Absolutely. Somebody to just tell me somebody to talk to. And as well, I’ve been I’ve worked on hospital wards and just massaged feet. Right. And even that can have a profound impact on somebody, you know, or helping them drift off to sleep.

Robin Daly
Well, you can completely appreciate it if the hospital staff are expressing their care for you by giving you chemotherapy, which is fair enough. It definitely doesn’t feel as good as having your feet massaged, does it? You know what I mean? It’s like, okay, it’s tough, tough medicine to say the least. And so the people should need some relief and genuine care, which really, you know, makes them feel cared for, not just they understand that they’re being cared for, but that actually is horrible. But they actually feel it physically, unbelievably important. Very important. I mean, we have to thank the pioneers who got in there in the last 20 years, delivering all services like Massage to patients in hospitals for free, you know, that’s the only reason they got it is because charities got in there and started doing it for free. And they still are, of course. I mean, you know, still, it’s not really serious medicine or anything. But of course, you and I know it is. And one day, hopefully, everybody will know it’s serious medicine to look after people with great care and properly. Absolutely, Michelle. Yeah. Okay. So let’s talk maybe a little bit about these issues that come from treatment. So there’s quite a few of them here and they’re quite different. So maybe we could start in on the scar tissue. This is presumably both scar tissue from surgery and from radiotherapy.

Serena Morgan
Absolutely.

Robin Daly
Yes. So what goes on there? How does it work and how good can the results be?

Serena Morgan
Oh, the results are, I’m a believable. I have to, yeah, absolutely. I blows my mind every single time and it doesn’t have to be, it doesn’t, it doesn’t have to just be on the immature scars. It can also be on scars that are 10 years old. Really? You can have an impact, absolutely on that.

Robin Daly
they’d just be, like, fixed after 10 years, wouldn’t you? They’re movable. You’d think that they would just be rock-sided and like, unchangeable, but that’s far from the truth. How amazing.

Serena Morgan
The scar tissue doesn’t just lay on the skin, which is the bit that you’re normally left seeing. They’re quite deep, aren’t they? It goes, yeah, it can go onto the bone and it can restrict arm movement and it can really cause other issues for mobility and tissues moving around in the body. Just to be able to release that off and to help the healing and the hypertrophic scars or the keloid scars and help reduce that, it can not just help people have a greater sense of movement and space and breath in their body, but also it can help with people’s mental and emotional recovery when they’re basically having to look at themselves.

Robin Daly
I mean, I’m aware of, like, in myself, you know, if you hurt some part of yourself, you know, you’re a back twinge or something, there’s the thing itself, but then it’s getting tense around it that actually really compounds it, makes it much, much worse. And if you can just let go, it actually will probably sort itself out in no time, you know? But it could go on forever if you just completely stay rigid around it. You just leave it. But with a scar, the body’s telling you there’s something wrong just there all the time, you know, this bit is a mess, and so I can imagine how you would just be tense around that part of your body forever because it’s been damaged and it’s got a message in there which says, not quite right here.

Serena Morgan
Absolutely. And then along with that, you come because it’s, it’s a traumatic event. Yeah, that you move through surgery is a huge format. Absolutely. So then we if this then isn’t if there’s no touch or there’s no rehabilitation on this area of the body is trauma and this emotion can then be heavily associated and attached to this part of the body. And then the other structures around that are changing the way that they move in order to keep this, this tension stuck in the body, it then affects the whole, the whole structure, whole system, right? It, it becomes more than just about there being this, this problem, quote unquote, this, at this point in the body, it becomes so much more and then it starts to reach out into other areas of body as

Robin Daly
Yeah and then as you say you can add into that that sometimes there’s so there’s a psychological and emotional difficulties around but it looks like you know and you’re being aware of that all the time as well so yeah it’s a big deal. Okay so um you mentioned lymphatic drainage and that’s a whole sort of discipline in of itself isn’t it the lympho lymphedema is that something you cover is it that’s not something

Serena Morgan
I cover. No. It’s a whole, it’s a whole nother ocean. Yeah, right. It’s a specialty. So, and I would be the specialist.

Robin Daly
Okay, well that’s friend love, but it’s good to hear, but I mean again, it’s like night and day for somebody who’s got lymphedema, isn’t it? Actually having skilled lymphatic drainage can just make a massive difference to mobility and everything.

Serena Morgan
change early, early on after surgery as well, having that knowledge and having those specialists around you, which I can triage to. There are, and that’s part of being in the integrative oncology area, which just numbing everybody, numbing these people, being able to push people into the right direction and get people in the room talking so that we’re also facing somebody’s rehabilitation.

Robin Daly
Right well hopefully these days everybody’s having lymph nodes removed is getting referred to a service like that but I don’t know whether that’s true or not. Lots of people are yeah lots of people are there’s a lot of lymph nodes. Well that’s good to hear.

Serena Morgan
Yeah. No, especially.

Robin Daly
Yeah, that’s great. But as you say, being plugged into the network is great. It does mean that somebody like you can be a sign poster as well, which if everybody within the network is prepared to be a sign poster, then you can enter at any point and find your way to the right place, which is very important. For sure. I notice you’re a member of the BSIO, for example, which is great. And, you know, that is a growing network of integrative oncology specialists, all sorts of disciplines from oncologists to, you know, all sorts of practitioners and doctors. So, yeah, really, really important. OK, I mentioned peripheral neuropathy. So tell me about that. How much difference can massage make to that? Actually, before we even talk about that, maybe you’d better say for the people who don’t know what peripheral neuropathy means.

Serena Morgan
or neuropathy. Sensations that can happen on our extremity, so things like our hands can be tingly or they can feel numb, our feet as well, which can be a result of the chemotherapy that we have been receiving. And sometimes these symptoms are almost left like a residue post-treatment and they can lessen with time by themselves, but sometimes they don’t and people can feel as though their feet, for example, feel quite numb and some of the time. So massage can really help stimulate the tissue and stimulate the nervous system and help reduce those symptoms, whether it be direct contact with where the neuropathy is occurring or closer to the spine.

Robin Daly
Right. I mean, I think I’m right in saying that, you know, under some circumstances, people have it as a symptom for a while while they’re being treated, but there are cases in which the damage is permanent. It can be. Yeah. So would it be true to say that having massage therapy during treatment could lessen the chances of it becoming permanent? Was that not known?

Serena Morgan
I see, actually I don’t know, I don’t know that from future. See, it makes sense. I don’t know if there’s any research on that. Yeah, all right. And if there is, there’s certainly not enough.

Robin Daly
No, okay. I mean, it’s a good question and it seems to make sense that it could. So, you know, I’d be interested to know that but…

Serena Morgan
Yeah, the more treatment people can receive, the more treatment and exercise that people can manage and maintain during treatment.

Robin Daly
Well, if you think of the effects that exercise can have on somebody, how it’s a massive form of treatment that’s largely being ignored in Britain at the moment, if you think how much effect that can have, well massage is in the same territory, it’s a physical therapy that manipulates the body, you know, moving the energy around the body, well, why wouldn’t that also be very healing in the same way? So, yeah, certainly I think you’re right, it’s due some more attention and everybody should consider it. Yeah, so you mentioned the fact that it can be just as it is for anybody who has an injury or whatever, it can be a way back to exercise or even to exercise, if somebody’s not used to doing it, which in and of itself we already know the science says is a massive, massive leg up for people who want to get well from and stay well from cancer. Absolutely. So, can you just say a bit about that, about sort of rehabilitation in that way?

Serena Morgan
Absolutely. The early, the early stages. So I work alongside physiotherapists and I work alongside oncologists as well. I provide a lot of soft tissue release to help people regain strength from injury or the people who want to get back to exercise. So one of my jobs as a massage therapist is to help the body recover, help muscle recovery, find breaking down waste products or tissues that aren’t serving the body well and the muscle recovery well. I’m helping to improve that blood flow so that the muscles can heal better. But also in addition to this, I can help the range of movement of joints and the mobility of joints that may not be, that may be limited or may not be functioning to their full capacity. So in doing that and increasing that range, I can help people strengthen into greater areas of movement and I can help them help their bodies move with more ease so that they can strengthen and they can, they can get back to doing what it is that they want to do, or they can get into doing what they want to do. And also within that and within exercising, you can really help somebody retain their body or claim and feel in the night and start getting their spot.

Robin Daly
All of which, of course, has a huge mental effect as well, making them feel empowered and on the mend and being able to do something to contribute to their own well-being.

Serena Morgan
Yeah. And not only that, we thought we’d gain independence and get back to performing daily tasks, get back to work and doing things that they need to do, picking up their children or, you know, basic, basic, everyday tasks. It doesn’t have to be running a marathon, although happy to help people run a marathon, but at the same time, just the easy things that we take for granted as states where we want able body.

Robin Daly
right okay now we’re not going to be able to do this justice but can you say a little bit about pain any kind of pain that people are likely to experience in cancer going through treatment

Serena Morgan
I’m going to say that there are an array of specialists out there that have the answers to a lot of questions. And one of the things that people are left with feeling is that sometimes they deserve the discomforts and the pains that they’ve been left with. And that is something that they don’t have to live with. They don’t have to reside in a body that has just survived a past or something. Their bodies are capable of doing so much and they don’t have to stay in that pain. There’s so many people, I don’t really know how to say it, but there’s so many people that have so many jobs in the area of oncology. And I believe that mine is to help people one place to another, realizing that they don’t have to live with this pain. They’re not indebted to it.

Robin Daly
And they don’t. Great. You said that. I was also thinking another thing, which is that plenty of people look around and think, well, you know, all these people around me are suffering much more. I don’t have a specific, you know, terrible thing, which is slaying me, so I don’t need it or something, which I think, realistically, simply being diagnosed with cancer is enough to say people need to have the kind of attention that you’re talking about. That’s enough. It’s enough for them to require some one-to-one attention. And that can be where the pain starts. And yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the impression you’ve given us is that there’s something on offer for everyone. Absolutely. And in fact, you even use the word imperative when it comes to some type of hands-on care. So do you agree that you think pretty much anyone with cancer at any stage during or after treatment could benefit from massage?

Serena Morgan
Do they? Definitely. There’s so many benefits that it has that I absolutely believe that anybody who is going through cancer treatment or who is in survivorship stages of cancer absolutely will benefit from massage from cancer treatment.

Robin Daly
for sure. Right so if nothing else go and give it a go. Give it a go. Right, excellent. All right well look it’s been fun very interesting talk to you Serena and thanks a lot for coming on the show.

Serena Morgan
Thanks for having me.

Robin Daly
It’s been very interesting to hear about your work and I imagine hearing this interview will tempt some more people with cancer to give some sort of massage okay I hope so anyway. P

Serena Morgan
Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure. Bye

Robin Daly
If you enjoyed listening to Serena and would like an opportunity to learn more from and about her just sign up for the Yes To Life autumn conference. It’s taking place t Euston London on the 7th of October and features a brilliant lineup of top experts there to help you learn about building a cancer team, a group of skilled people to provide you with all the support you need going through cancer. Serena will be there running one of the many live workshops during the day that are there to provide you with experience and resources. The event will be showcasing such well-known leaders in the field as Kirsten Chick, Dr. Sam Watts, Patricia Peat, Sophie True and many, many more. There will be workshops on EFT, reflexology, hypnotherapy, breathwork, exercise, plant-based diets and much more. To read more about it go to the dedicated website that’s yestolifeannualconference.org or you can get there via our main website yestolife.org.uk just look under events. I’m going to end the show this week with another sample track from the album Songs Our Parents Sang by Mirren. The album is available from the Yes To Life online store which you can find a link to right at the top of any page at yestolife.org.uk, the charity’s main website. Look under brands and then music where the album’s available as either a download or a CD. Profits from the sales go to Yes To Life. The track I’m going to play you is called All Is Found. Thanks very much for listening this week. Please make a point to joining me again next week for another Yes To Life show.