Don’t be the tough and try to get through without support

Don’t be the tough guy and try to get through without support. That is the advice of cancer survivor Rhys Jones.

The former Lieutenant General of the NZ Defence Force, and previous chief executive of Fire and Emergency NZ says that by talking about your cancer with others you have the potential to improve your experience – and theirs.

“I didn’t want to show any weakness. A big lesson for me was to create space where family and friends can actually feel that they can help you,” he says.

“Don’t be that ‘I’m alright. I’m tough, I can do this by myself’ guy.”

Rhys’ bowel cancer was discovered through a routine screening – and by talking about it he hopes others will be encouraged to be proactive about the health – and mental wellbeing – too.

“It’s as much a psychological approach for wellbeing as it as the technical aspects of dealing with cancer. Military training taught me to understand the environment, that’s probably the best thing that you can do – try and reduce the panic.

“Start by talking to people who have been through it, they can help you understand what lies ahead,” he says. “That’ll make it easier for you to be able to talk about it too. Getting my family to know what’s going to happen was also useful although I didn’t learn that lesson till much later.”

In the Cancer Conversations podcast for Look Good Feel Better, Rhys shares how he initially felt he had to be calm, controlled and tough, and because he was focussed on himself he didn’t see the effect it was having on people at home – and at work.

“I was trying to play things down. But you the person going through cancer are not the only victim of this – your family and your friends are also.

“Open up, accept the fact that you will need psychological help or physical help. Giving people some tasks to do or some role in your recovery becomes really important because it’ll help them get through this as well,” Rhys says.

“Because it creates a common event that people have gone through – and that’s the whole theory behind team building.”

Rhys says it is important to take care of yourself – be conscious of your health issues, take advantage of everything that’s being offered by the organisations such as Look Good Feel Better.

But don’t do it in isolation: “Create your own support crew. Your emotions go up and down. It’s really good to have people around you that are able to step in and help you through that. My wife came along to most of my consultations prior to my operation – she was the one who was asking the questions.

“And remember, it’s okay to have a meltdown, it’s another phase to get through.”