New Swindon charity Aurora founded to support young breast cancer victims

But age is becoming the disease’s greatest divide with eight in 10 women diagnosed over 50.

Not surprisingly this has meant most charities and campaign groups in Swindon have concentrated their efforts on the majority, inadvertently leaving young women and mothers struggling in the wake of a life-threatening diagnosis without age-appropriate support.

But this is all about to change thanks to the launch of Aurora Breast Cancer Wellbeing, a charity dedicated to redressing the balance for the silent 20 per cent.

The fledgling organisation is the brainchild of Anushka Chaudhry, a consultant oncoplastic breast surgeon at the Great Western and Ridgeway Hospitals.

From the moment she took up her new post 2014, the plight of her young and pre-menopausal patients was impossible to ignore.

So along with fellow health professionals and survivors she embarked on the gruelling and time-consuming task of building her own charity from the ground up.

After months of careful planning and thorough research, they launched Aurora in September at a Bollywood-themed event at the Old Bank in Old Town.

Aurora’s goals are simple. The team plans to offer counselling and age-appropriate information, address the specific medical concerns of pre-menopausal patients such as fertility and the financial and psychological ramifications of undergoing aggressive treatment.

“Our young women deserved more,” says Anushka, who acts as the charity’s chairman.

“There are a lot of groups that give women amazing emotional support and friendship in Swindon and Wiltshire but we needed a programme for young women.

“The issues women under 50 face are very different from post-menopausal women. It hits them at the most proactive time in their life. Unfortunately when cancer declares itself early, especially in women in their 30s and 40s it tends to be more aggressive.

“They may have young families or be about to start a family; or not have had a chance to decide whether they want to. The treatment will involve chemotherapy and then can put women in early menopause which means they may never have children. The issue of fertility, coupled with coping work during treatment can be really difficult.”

Seeing women forced to travels miles for the support they couldn’t receive at home was one of the main reasons Aurora trustee Charlayne Harding joined the venture.

“Cheltenham has the Maggie Centre, Oxford too, we had to refer all our patients to Bath, Bristol or Oxford,” says the breast care nurse specialist at The Ridgeway Hospital. “We just felt like the poor relation.”

Every year approximately 9,800 breast cancer cases out of the 55,000 diagnosed in the UK are younger women. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women aged under 40.

So far this year, Anushka has treated around 100 patients under the age of 50 in Swindon.

Counselling and emotional support is only part of what Aurora aims to offer.

“We want to provide information about different treatments, survival rates, information about mastectomy, reconstructive surgery and the types of implants available and new research,” she explains.

There is also the issue of childcare and the pressures of raising a family under huge emotional and final strain.

To ensure all bases are covered, the Aurora team plan to collaborate with a host of local organisations, such as family support charity Home Start, and act in effect as a referral service signposting users to more appropriate or specialised groups if and when necessary.

“We want to partner with other charities and bring their expertise to women. Child care is a big problem. They are exhausted from radiotherapy and they might not be able to pick up their children from school. If they have to stop working, losing income can be a problem. We just want these women to be looked after.”

As a breast cancer survivor Aurora team member Rachel Kennedy, now 54, is painfully aware of the toll the disease can take on every aspect of a mother’s life.

While she was able to rely on her family for emotional support and to drive her to and from hospital, she knows that few single women or mothers raising young children are as fortunate.

“My children were 15 and 12 at the time but I know that if they’d been younger it might have been very different,” admits the mother-of-two who was first diagnosed at the age of 43 and had to undergo a lumpectomy and mastectomy. “I can’t imagine how much more difficult it would be for younger women or women without the same support. I had to stop working for six weeks but I had help. My husband was very supportive. I was one of the lucky ones.”

Following her convalescence Rachel started the Ridgeway Breast Care Support Group at the hospital along with Charlayne. The mounting need for an age-appropriate service became a growing concern and they teamed up with Anushka and other volunteers to form Aurora.

Despite the launch, the charity remains in its conceptual phase and the team still needs between £12,000 and £15,000 to be able to set its plans in motion and offer a bespoke programme for patients of child-bearing age, including support groups, quarterly information sessions run by medical experts as well as one-on-one counselling for them and their families at its headquarters in Alexandra House.

“The launch was about putting Aurora in people’s minds,” says Anushka. “It launched the charity but not the service. We just needed to kick off the fundraising.”

Once the charity is up and running at Alexandra House in Wroughton, the team hopes to turn its service into a full-fledged wellness centre for patients of all ages and genders (last year five men in Swindon were diagnosed with breast cancer).

The team also wants to provide holistic therapies like reiki, massages, acupuncture and aromatherapy.

“Cancer takes a lot out of a person,” says Charlayne. “When you’re diagnosed it’s like a bomb going off in your life.

“Women can struggle to cope with the harsh side-effects and the impact of the treatment. And they can struggle after the treatment too. We know that after-treatment is almost as important as treatment itself. And that’s what we’ will be providing through counselling and the holistic therapies.”

Rachel adds: “Having a place where women can be completely themselves, and get pampered a bit is important. You are a little bit at rock bottom when you go through everything. You feel sick, you’re losing your hair. But they will be coming out feeling 10 times better than they did when they come in.”

Their mission has only just begun and the next few months will prove decisive for the future of Aurora. Fundraising remains the biggest hurdle yet but Anushka is quietly confident.

“We know it can be done,” she says resolutely. “We want to develop it, we just need help.”

To find out more about Aurora, sponsor the charity or volunteer e-mail aurorabreastcancerwellbeing@gmail.com.