{"id":928419,"date":"2026-10-15T00:10:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T00:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/928419\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T00:10:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T00:10:18","slug":"calls-for-better-post-cancer-care-to-give-isolated-survivors-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/928419\/","title":{"rendered":"Calls for better post-cancer care to give isolated survivors support"},"content":{"rendered":"

After about a year of fighting against stage two Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Carly Gogel was somewhat lost when she found out she had beaten cancer.<\/p>\n

“You’re now deemed in remission, and you can go back to normal life now,” she remembered being told at her last appointment.<\/p>\n

“I was like, ‘Hang on a minute, I don’t know what that looks like anymore.’<\/p>\n

“I feel different, I look different, I haven’t been at full-time work for months now.<\/p>\n

“It probably was the hardest journey for me from that day onwards for about probably six to 12 months.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ms Gogel used several wigs after losing her hair during cancer treatment. (ABC South East SA: Josh Brine)<\/p>\n

While every cancer journey was unique, experts said Ms Gogel was far from the only one to experience this post-cancer struggle.<\/p>\n

“Some people say cancer has become like their full-time job during treatment,” Flinders University psycho-oncology expert Lisa Beatty said.<\/p>\n

“They almost don’t really start to process the emotional or mental health impact of cancer until they’ve got to the point they’ve finished treatment.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Ms Gogel was diagnosed with cancer just before her 24th birthday. (ABC South East SA: Josh Brine)<\/p>\n

Mental health overlooked<\/p>\n

Ms Gogel, who lives at Naracoorte in SA’s south east, said the journey had taken a mental toll on her, and she struggled with expectations that she could go back to “normal”.<\/p>\n

“I was probably very fortunate to have people around me that supported me extremely well when I returned to work,” she said.<\/p>\n

“There are plenty of people out there that probably don’t have that much support.”<\/p>\n

\"Kirsten<\/p>\n

Breast Cancer Network Australia’s Kirsten Pilati says cancer care should focus more on mental health.\u00a0 (ABC News: Patrick Stone)<\/p>\n

Breast Cancer Network Australia CEO Kirsten Pilatti said mental health was an oft-overlooked part of living with cancer.<\/p>\n

“It’s about sitting back and asking the questions about how they really are, how are they feeling, how has their life changed, and then putting a plan together,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s time we look at the whole care of breast cancer and bring the human back to cancer care.”\"a<\/p>\n

Ms Gogel got her dog Koda shortly after entering remission. (ABC South East SA: Josh Brine)<\/p>\n

Range of support needed<\/p>\n

Ms Gogel’s mother reached out to her cancer nurse and received counselling through Canteen.<\/p>\n

“It was just to try and get me back on track and work out perspectives, and learning to take a breath and appreciate how big of a process I’ve just gone through,” she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Gogel said knowing there were people who support a patient both during and after cancer could make a world of difference mentally.<\/p>\n

“You need to allow yourself to feel how you feel at that time,” she said.<\/p>\n

“But you know that you are loved and supported and there are people cheering for you in your corner.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Lisa Beatty is an expert in psycho-oncology. (Supplied: Flinders University)<\/p>\n

Professor Beatty said online supports were available for people managing their mental health during and after cancer.<\/p>\n

“When we did a big trial of this, we found that over a third of people who signed up for it were from rural areas,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It meets a particular need for people who may have fewer services and supports available.”<\/p>\n

But she said more funding was required to develop supports.<\/p>\n

“We know we can make a massive difference to people’s overall quality of life, but also some of their cancer outcomes too,” she said.<\/p>\n

More news from regional SA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After about a year of fighting against stage two Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Carly Gogel was somewhat lost when she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":928420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,1617,495510,44982,137,495511,514,5311,11428,9489],"class_list":["post-928419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cancer","tag-carly-gogel","tag-flinders-university","tag-health","tag-lisa-beatty","tag-mental-health","tag-oncology","tag-psychology","tag-recovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/928420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}