Active Together: Claire’s experience

“Active Together has been a complete lifeline for me.”

Claire Strachan, a mother of two from Wetherby, joined Active Together after her breast cancer diagnosis in October 2022.

The programme, funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research, offers fitness, nutrition and wellbeing support for people diagnosed with cancer, to help patients prepare for and recover from cancer treatment.

Claire was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer at 50 years old after noticing an indentation in the mirror on holiday and subsequently finding a lump in her right breast.

After initially being told she would need surgery to remove the cancer, a second tumour was discovered during an ultrasound and Claire was told she would need a mastectomy.

Claire explained it was a rocky period between first being diagnosed to beginning treatment. She said: “I was misdiagnosed as post-menopausal which meant I was not offered chemotherapy. Unfortunately, it was too late by the time my doctors realised I wasn’t, and I had to have another two operations including a full hysterectomy. I ended up having three lots of surgery within ten months.”

Following her third operation, support from the hospital ended and Claire found it very difficult to return to normal life.

Having undergone an intense period of surgery, Claire was left exhausted, and her fitness levels were “at an all-time low”.

Claire found out about Active Together through social media and on the radio. She had an initial fitness assessment with a cancer exercise specialist who reviewed her history of cancer treatment.  She received personalised cancer exercise treatment weekly, starting from exercises in a chair, moving to weight training with suspension equipment three months later.

The specialist team at the Yorkshire Cancer Research centre also offered Claire psychological and nutritional support to help her through her recovery from cancer.

“Talking through my feelings with the counsellor made me realise I was not alone in feeling lost after my hospital treatment came to an end. The staff have also been amazing at arranging all the sessions and booking everything in around my working hours.”

After her experience with Active Together, Claire chose to get involved in ‘We Walk for Yorkshire’. Taking place in May, the Yorkshire Cancer Research campaign encourages people in Yorkshire to get active and work together to walk 31,000 miles — equal to the number of people in Yorkshire that are diagnosed with cancer each year.

Claire said: “I saw We Walk for Yorkshire as an opportunity to say thank you to everyone at the centre and give something back.  It also enabled me to help fundraise so that other people could also benefit from the amazing support I had received and get them back on their feet too. I was overwhelmed by the sponsorship and have raised over £1,800.”

Active Together currently supports people with cancer in Sheffield, Harrogate, Doncaster, Barnsley, and Rotherham. The service will soon be made available at venues across Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Pontefract and Wakefield, with plans for further expansion in Yorkshire next year.