Time to look good & feel better

Free Mount Gambier workshop this month for all cancer patients

When Mount Gambier based friends Lynette Hirth and Kaye Chalk were going through their cancer treatment, accessing some support was only possible if they were prepared to head to Adelaide.

Look Good Feel Better, a free national community service program that helps to improve the wellbeing and confidence of people undergoing treatment for cancer, was one of those services, and Lynette was determined to make that support available in the Limestone Coast.

This year Look Good Feel Better Mount Gambier and Lynette, as the volunteer coordinator and facilitator of the service, turns 22, and there is a workshop on the horizon, which will be held on October 24 at the John Frew Centre in Mount Gambier.

The program offers face-to-face workshops, like the October 24 event, as well as virtual workshops and Home-Delivered Confidence Kits.

The face-to-face workshop demonstrations cover skin care techniques to alleviate side effects like dryness and sallowness that result from treatment; makeup tips to help patients deal with concealing redness and drawing on eyebrows and lashes; and advice on headwear, including scarf styling and wig selection.

At each workshop, participants receive a Confidence Kit full of skincare and make-up products to use as tools for application throughout the workshop, and for continued use at home.

“Participants not only benefit from the very practical tips and tricks we teach them, they also benefit from the opportunity to meet others in a similar situation,” Lynette said. “Through these workshops, friendships and additional support networks are formed that can help during diagnosis and treatment.

“For me, it showed me I was not the only one in the world going through chemo and radiotherapy. There were around 20 women in the room when I went to Adelaide and when they took their wigs off it was really powerful.

“When you are diagnosed with something like cancer your whole world revolves around what you are dealing with and the treatment and its affects.

“What I love now, running the workshops, is seeing women come in with sad faces and they leave with a smile on their faces.”

Look Good Feel Better PR & communications manager Vanessa Gambin said the program, and, in particular, face-to-face workshops, rely on volunteer support and that’s where Lynette’s role has been so vital.

“The workshops are run by volunteers, like Lynette, who generously give their time to help our participants feel more empowered, confident, and in- control of the changes they are experiencing,” Vanessa said. Lynette, too, has been assisted over the pasty two decades by volunteers from both Soroptimists and the Lions Club of Blue Lake City Lioness.

Lynette runs three workshops a year at the John Frew Centre, Mount Gambier, coordinating those who might want to get involved in conjunction with Breast Care Nurse Dana Mulraney.

“Women undergoing any kind of treatment for any kind of cancer can come along and the Lions ladies welcome them and they have a cuppa and then we go through the workshop with the skin care and make up tips and trying in wigs and how to care for them – that part is lots of fun,” Lynette said. “It is such a beautiful program.”

Lynette and Kaye also started the Booby Bunch, a support group for breast cancer patients, that meets every three weeks and has done for the past two decades. They also have participated regularly in Relay For Life.

“We both worked so couldn’t get to some of the other support group meetings during the week,” Lynette said. “Back in the early 2000s breast cancer wasn’t talked about as much as it is now so you did feel isolated. We used to meet to have a coffee and a chat and a laugh. Often we talked about anything but.”

The Look Good Feel Better program is run by the Cancer Patients Foundation; an independent not-for-profit organisation, not affiliated with any other cancer charity or support service. With no government funding, it is the generosity of the community through financial contributions, product donations and time that allows for the service to be provided to cancer patients free-of-charge.

Registration is essential for the October 24 Mount Gambier workshop, via lgfb.org.au/ workshop or 1800 650 960

WORKSHOP VOLUNTEERS: Beryl Mahoney, Lynette Hirth, Wynne Turner (seated) & Gayle Green