This podcast contains the personal stories, opinions and experiences of its speakers rather than those of Breast Cancer Now.

Today's episode is with Hayley Gullen, the author of a brilliant graphic memoir or book of cartoons and comics called This Might Surprise You. It's a memoir of her breast cancer experience told through cartoons. We somehow managed to cover the entire spectrum of the cancer experience from parenting with cancer, to mental health to the guilt that you feel when people have to take care of you and you can't take care of yourself to fear of recurrence, to recovering from chemo and she tells all of this through her brilliant graphic memoir, This Might Surprise You. We tackle both the serious side of cancer and the lighter side and the positive bits that Hayley has taken away from her cancer experience in terms of enjoying her life in a new way and appreciating the little things in life. So I hope you'll find, like the book, this conversation both uplifting and also relatable because I certainly did. I really hope you enjoy it.

Today we're speaking to Hayley Gullen, a cartoonist and breast cancer survivor who's written a brilliant graphic memoir called This Might Surprise You. Hayley's book is a series of cartoons that show what it's like to go through cancer treatment, but in a funny, relatable and enjoyable way. It's a lovely gift for a friend or family member who's been diagnosed with breast cancer, and it's out now. We'll be talking to Hayley about her own experience with breast cancer. and how cartoons have acted as therapy, helping her to express herself and assert her identity. Hayley, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much. Lovely to be here.

First of all, you've created this beautiful graphic memoir full of cartoons about the breast cancer experience. Have you always been an artist?

I've always doodled. I've always enjoyed drawing. I did art at school, but I didn't study it. I've got no artistic training. This is the first time I've done a, I've committed to a artistic project. I'm a failed author. the part, basically my whole adult life, I've been trying to get a novel published, like a prose novel. I've written five over the last 15 years or so. This is my first graphic memoir and clearly this is what I should be doing. So I feel like I found, I found my niche.
What you're destined to do. How did you discover that you were? brilliant at drawing cartoons?

Well, I've always done it. It's just been part of my life. It's funny, I've been going through old paperwork recently and finding I did a cartoon for my school sports day. I did a cartoon for my university magazine. I've always done them at different points in my life. So I look back and think, oh, this is always part of who I was. And now I'm it's not like because cancer is what sort of inspired me to write to create this book. but it isn't a new thing, it's something that's always been part of me that's just sort of become brought out more by what's happened to me in recent years.

The book is called, This Might Surprise You, A Breast Cancer Story. We will talk about your own breast cancer story in a moment, but could you tell us briefly what the book is about and who it's for?

Yeah, so it outlines my experience as a breast cancer patient. So it goes from my diagnosis, it goes from me finding the lump when I was 37, and then going through my treatment. So chemo, surgery, radiotherapy, more chemo, and basically to the end of active treatment. So I walk you through, it's a continuous narrative that walks you through what I went through, what the experience was like, and how uh the outcome at the end of it. Obviously my story is still ongoing, but I wanted to end it on a hopeful note. So I think the primary audience for my book is other breast cancer patients, people going through it. I know from my Instagram followers that people, I've shared extracts online and people say that uh it helps them feel less alone. I think everyone's story is obviously unique. My story is very specific to me, but I think there are universal elements of the breast cancer experience or the cancer experience that I think people appreciate feeling their experience has been reflected. I think it's also useful for loved ones to help them understand what their loved one is going through. And also doctors and nurses, medical professionals can learn a lot from it as well.

Can you describe to us your style of drawing? Obviously we're here on a podcast audio format, so if people don't have it in front, I'm sure they're going to Google it and order it straight away. Can you describe to us the style of your cartoons?

Yeah, I describe it as quite cute. I wanted to em draw it in a way that is attractive because people hear cancer memoir and they think grim, bleak and that's true. That's obviously part of the experience. It is horrible and scary and painful. But I think that's for me, that's not the full experience of the story. I think there's a hopeful, funny, absurd, there are absurdities throughout the whole experience that I wanted to emphasise. And I wanted to develop a drawing style that walks that line between hardness and softness and pain and hope. And I think there's something I really like about having a very cute style with big eyes that um is attractive, that draws people in, but is being used to communicate quite heavy material. So that's what I've tried to do. And I think... My natural style is that anyway, I've really, but doing this project, it's sort of brought out even more.

Yeah. I've described it as being like the Tom Gates for cancer. And I know lots of adults might not know who the Tom Gates books are, but they're a, so if you have kids, you might know these books, but they're a very popular series of books for children that have these beautiful, illustrated big cartoons with. with a story going alongside, you sort of, it's just really, really engaging and draws you in and you see the pictures, but you read the words alongside it.
And I think it's exactly what you've just described and exactly, you know, the sort of thing that your book does as well. And that's a compliment, by the way, that's a huge compliment.
So let's move on to your breast cancer diagnosis. Where were you in life leading up to your diagnosis? You said you were 37.

Yeah. So I have a husband and a young daughter, she was three. at the time. I worked freelance as a grant writer, so writing funding proposals for charities part time, so I did a lot of the childcare as well. So I woke up in middle of the night with some pain in my breast, just in one breast. Often I feel a bit achy depending on the time of the month, but it was very much not that. It felt different and weird. And I just thought, oh, I'll check that in the morning, went back to sleep. In the morning, I checked myself, found a lump. very obviously a lump. And I thought, okay, I'll go and get that checked. It's probably nothing. I'm young. I'll do the sensible thing. And I went to the GP. I got an appointment that morning. I was very fortunate. And they referred me to the breast clinic and they were saying, don't worry, it's probably nothing. Good to get checked. And it was something. Yeah.
So I went to the breast clinic, was examined by the surgeon who said, oh, it's probably a cyst, but I'll... send you for an ultrasound just to make sure. Had the ultrasound and they did it and then she said, we'll do a mammogram and a biopsy. And that was totally overwhelming. But I still kind of in denial. I just thought, oh, they're being very, very careful. em But looking back, when they did the uh ultrasound, I've learned since that radiologists, can see pretty much straight away if there's... something of concern and she went very quiet. And I always remember when I left, she didn't say, you'll be fine. She said, good luck. And I thought, ah but I was still blocked. So I had to then wait a week to go back and get my results. And I was like, oh, why do I have to go back? Why can't they just call me? It's just a load of admin. It's really annoying. And so I was sort of, just got, I didn't even worry that much that week. Then I went back. And I walked in, it was the same surgeon who had done the original examination. And I was all cheerful, going, oh, hello. And normally when I'm cheerful, the other person sort of reflects that back to me and he didn't. And then he said, it is cancer. And yeah, that was quite the moment. But I think I'd already been through the denial stage. And so I accepted it quite quickly. And then he did say straight away, you have a treatable form. It was primary breast cancer. So they reassured me very quickly that it was treatable. And then I was sort of flung straight into the treatment regime and my life was completely upended. Yeah, I mean, you know what it's like, don't you? It's a whirlwind. And it took me a long time to actually process all the feelings that came out of that, which I had to do later.

I think it's quite helpful sometimes when you have that. not necessarily denial, but you just don't realise, you don't know when they say good luck that actually, that they're saying that because they already know that you have breast cancer and it's very useful for you to be naive when it comes to that. It was very similar with me. I had, mine was kind of over the course of four months, I had various different doctors say, oh, it's definitely nothing. I was only 29 and it's definitely nothing. It's absolutely fine. Or 99 % it's nothing. And then when it came to, we're just gonna do a biopsy. I didn't know then that biopsy often means or can mean that, know, that they think that you have, that they think that it is breast cancer and that they're testing it. So then when I went away for that week of waiting, I wasn't waiting thinking, oh God, I've got breast cancer. I was completely naive that week. And that was useful to me to be naive. So I think it's always helpful not to do. loads and loads of Googling and reading at that stage and just not to know.

Yeah, I agree. And what kind of breast cancer were you diagnosed with? Was it oestrogen?

It was triple positive. Yeah.

Okay. So I think you mentioned chemotherapy, radiotherapy. So what was your, did you have surgery as well?

Yeah. So I had eight rounds of chemo. I had breast conserving surgery, 15 doses of radiotherapy, a couple of Fezco injections, and then they switched me to Cadcyla. So I had 13 cycles of Cadcyla. And now I'm on Tamoxifen. um I also have a bit of Lymphedema in my arm as well now. So a fair few of the long-term side effects. Yeah.

The Fezco is for HER2 positive, it? So when you said triple positive, that's oestrogen, HER2, and progesterone positive, isn't it? So it means that there's lots of treatments, options for you.

Yeah.

And you said it completely upended your life. In what way, how did it change your life?

I think when I reflect on that whole experience, the thing that really stands out is the change to my identity, because I was just a normal woman with a good career, family, enjoying my life. Then all of a sudden I was a cancer patient, just had this new unwelcome identity forced on me. And I felt that that cancer treatment is horrible. It feels horrible. It's scary. But more than anything, I felt so frustrated by the sense that my identity had just been torn away from me. And then coupled with the physical changes, you know, I lost most of my hair. I didn't look like myself. I felt rubbish. And I had like a hospital number. I felt like the doctors and nurses were seeing me as a set of diagnoses. And they were broadly kind to me. They were nice people. But It was hard to get away from the sense that I was sort of on a conveyor belt. was the next, you know, they've got a big caseload to get through, however kind they are. I felt like I was a problem to be solved more than a person, you know? em And I really resented that. really frustrated me. And um I think I've got a piece of art that sort of demonstrates how dehumanising the whole thing was. It's of me hooked up to a chemo machine and It's a repeating image and you've got beep, beep, beep. And the caption is, beeping machines that made me feel like a widget in a factory. Because when you're sitting there, you feel so powerless because you can't move because you're hooked up to the IV and you're waiting for the nurse to come if you need something and you hear the beeps and then you're one in like there's loads of other people there and it just feels so dehumanising.

I think that's what's so brilliant about your book. You have these cartoons that that when I first saw your work, which is in the really early stages of the book, but lots of these em cartoons have made it into the final book, haven't they? It just resonates with you as a patient, as someone who's been through that or is going through that. It's such a brilliant read because you look at it and you see this design showing something funny that you might not have actually thought of yourself, but you put that into words for us and you put it into drawings as well. So showing us as a robot in a machine in a cancer hospital. I remember writing a blog actually in 2013 about radiotherapy. Because when I was having radiotherapy, which went on for like six weeks or something, the radiographers in the room use all these terminology around you. I remember them saying things like, 13, 13 centimetre soup or something. And they were always saying 13 centimetre soup, 42 centimetre soup. And I in my head was like soup as in S-O-U-P. And, but they were S-U-P-E. And I think it was, it was like up and down. They were talking about the position of the lasers in the radiotherapy. I hope no radiographers are listening because that's entirely the wrong terminology. But it was me as a writer and as a person who thinks about words. thinking about the words that they're using around me, not understanding it. It's just like all this noise going on around you. And your book really puts that experience, that dehumanising experience into words and writing, I think if that makes sense.

Yeah, having sort of jargon sort of blasted at you, I think is a very relatable experience if you've been through cancer treatment. I've got like a page in my book where I go into my... consultation with the surgeon and I've drawn him on the cloud like a god and he's like booming big words down at me uh as a way of showing that sort of, I felt so distant from, you know, we're in the same room dealing with the same problem, but from completely different angles. And then I ask him a question, I ask him to explain one of the words and then I draw him climbing off the cloud and coming down to my level and explaining it. So I think that doctors and nurses don't mean to alienate us usually, but they They're just so in their world and we're in our world. And I went into this this treatment program thinking that doctors and nurses would understand what it's like to be me, because they see so many people like me, but it's sort of like a hall of mirrors. Like they're on a completely, because the power imbalance and you know, they're in their world. They've got, you know, they're just not, they're not thinking like a cancer patient unless they've been through it themselves. So I hope that my book will. it will walk them through what it's like from my perspective. And of course they know we're people, but just reminds them that there's a human being on the other side of the room, you know.

They sometimes also use words and say things to you that they assume you already know and you actually don't know. Like I've come across people who have been told something about the cancer. when they didn't know that they had cancer. Like it's been mentioned in a group, that's a really extreme example. But I've had lots of examples even with me where a doctor has said something that hasn't been communicated to me yet. And they're saying it because they just assume you know, because from reading your results or whatever, that is just a known thing. But yeah, there's a lot of stuff in that medical world. There's a disconnect sometimes between medical, healthcare professionals and patients where you just like, what, what? You're like a deer in headlights kind of thing. And again, that's what your book sort of communicates in a way that really we can relate to.

Yeah, that reminds me one time in chemo, I'd had an echocardiogram and the nurse just came up to me and said, your echo is 58. And as she looked at me, as if she was waiting for me to say something, I was like, is that good, bad, medium? No idea. It's like, They just assume you know because they know, which of course I don't know. You know, if no one's told me that before, it was fine by the way, but yeah.

Okay, good. So at what point in your treatment did you start writing and drawing this book?

So I talked earlier about how dehumanised I felt by the whole experience. And that sort of, feeling sort of kicked in pretty quickly after my diagnosis. literally the next day I was, back for an MRI scan. So was in a big machine, know, my life was just completely upended. um And I felt incredibly frustrated by the fact I was being seen as a patient and a hospital number. And I'm like, damn it, I'm Hayley. I wanted to express something about myself to the doctors and nurses, but they're very busy. You know, they don't have time for my whole life story. Of course not. um So I felt like I wanted to do something, but Yeah, it's quite weird looking back. I had this sort of overwhelming feeling there was something I needed to do, but I didn't know what it was. And then I heard that my surgeon was going on paternity leave for a couple of weeks. Now I liked my surgeon, but he was kind and attentive, but I definitely felt that distance. And I completely appreciate the need for professional boundaries, but at the same time, it also really frustrated me because I wanted him to see me as Haley. So I had this idea to draw him a card um of congratulating him on his baby. And it was quite a dark humour card. it's a picture of, it's in the book. It's a picture of me about to go under the knife and his baby is passing him a knife to operate on me. So I gave him this card and he didn't open it in front of me, but he was clearly very delighted to receive a card. But I didn't know how he was going to react when he opened it. But then, in my medical notes he wrote about it. He said he thought it was delightful. So that was really lovely. It was a sign that I'd found a way of connecting across that divide and he had responded positively. And that made me think, oh, cartoons are actually a great way of connecting and a really immediate em way of connecting with people. And maybe they can help me cross that divide. And it's a nice thing to give someone a card, m but that card also did a bit more. It communicated something about me, like, look, I can draw, look, I've got a sense of humour. And that was great. And it just was a positive moment in that whole ordeal. And then Christmas came around and I did a Christmas card, which was a little comic strip of my year in cancer. And one of the nurses I gave it to said, oh, it's a bit like a graphic novel. And I thought, oh yeah. And then I thought, well, doing a whole graphic novel, that's a ridiculous idea. I can never do that. And then but I realised I had to, I realised I had so much to say. um you know, as I mentioned earlier, I've written prose novels, but I've never attempted a graphic novel before. So I found a graphic novel mentor. she gave me, I had a few sessions with her and she helped me get on the right track. She was fantastic.

Is this all whilst you're still going through chemo radiotherapy, by the way, or is this after now?

So I did the card for the surgeon. while I was going through chemo, finished chemo, I had the surgery just before Christmas. And then I did the Christmas card. I think literally the day after I came back from surgery, I was drawing the cards.
I think I just had lots of energy and feelings that I needed to channel into something. And also, as I'm sure you know, when you're going through intensive medical treatment like that, if you get a burst of energy, you want to use it because you know it's not gonna be there the next day potentially. um So, and then I had radiotherapy. from like January, February in 2023. And I started the graphic novel around the time I started radiotherapy. So I'd been through the worst bit chemo, but I still going through active cancer treatment while I was working on the book, yeah.

And at that point, are you thinking this could be a published book at some point, or are you thinking I'm just doing this because it helps me process? I was doing it because I thought it could be a book and... It's interesting the thing about processing my experience because people, many people said to me, um was it really therapeutic putting this book together? And actually the answer is no, because actually I had to revisit a lot of the really traumatic experiences in order to make good art. The thing that processed those experiences was therapy. I had some uh therapy with a cancer psychologist, which really helped uh get past all that. And I think I had to have a bit of distance from those experiences to um make good art out of it. But at the same time, I was obviously still going through the treatment. So there was something really immediate about it. So I think that's an interesting uh balance between the sort of making sure you've got enough perspective to tell the story you want to tell, but also um keeping it immediate and fresh. And I knew there was value in me keeping it immediate and fresh and doing it as I was going through the experience. And yeah, there was probably some element of that being therapeutic, but it was more about asserting my identity and creating something positive out of such a horrible experience. And then as soon as I started sharing bits on Instagram, so my mentor, I wasn't even on social media. I quit it all a few years ago. I was like, it's awful. I don't want to be on it. But my mentor was like, Haley, you should probably get on social media to promote your art. And I thought, oh. probably should, okay, fine. And then I joined it and then I discovered the online cancer community, which is fantastic. And I realised the way people were responding to the bits I was sharing, it's like, this is maybe who my audience is. And I thought, maybe if I develop this, I can build a profile and maybe I can get a book published. And I was correct. So that was great.

Well, before we move on to how you got this book published, tell us about those other five novels that you'd written in the past? em What kind of novels were they? I guess that means you've always wanted to be an author.

Yeah, I would describe them probably as commercial women's fiction, slightly quirky. m I'm not going to revisit those particular novels. As I'm sure you know, cancer sort of changes you and I'm not the same person I was em when I wrote those novels. There's different stories I want to tell now. em But yeah, I've always, I've been trying to get published ever since um my sort of early twenties. And I've occasionally had nice feedback from literary agents, but never got an agent. um Never, yeah, never got published. And I was getting a bit tired of that grind, you know, sending everything out, getting it rejected and thinking maybe it's time to try something different. I dabbled a bit in writing screenplays, which was fun. That never progressed anywhere. mainly because then I got diagnosed with cancer and then everything changed.

Before you got diagnosed with cancer, what was your response to those rejections?

I mean, you obviously kept going, you kept writing. Were you just determined to have something keep, you obviously believe in your work. Yeah, to be honest, I'm not actually that bothered by rejection. I mean, my day job, I'm a fundraiser. My first ever job, I was a street fundraiser for Greenpeace, literally standing on the streets asking people for... direct debit. So believe me, I know about rejection. um And I think, you know, yeah, it's not the result you want, of course, but um I don't know how to talk about this without falling into cliche, but it's like you learn and you grow with each one. I try with my creative, I think with creative work, it's you put so much of yourself into it. It's hard to see it clearly. You've got all your emotions and potentially bit of ego and you know, you, you, it can be. It can feel very personal if you're rejected for your creative work, but I tried as hard as I could to, you know, I want to be a creative professional. So try and create, pour my heart into the work, but then have that professional distance from it when it's created, send it out into the world. If people reject it, think, okay, do I agree? Is there something I could do better next time? Or is it as good as it could have been? And maybe someone else might be interested. And so... Yeah, I think rejection is just part of it. But after a certain point, you're like, I was getting to the point with my writing that it's like, this isn't working out. um Maybe, you know, wasn't going to cry about it, but it's like, maybe I should shift my approach somehow. um And looking back at those novels, I think they had many merits. The first couple were rubbish. I wouldn't want those out in the world. um I was certainly improving though. um But I don't think that what I was doing was different enough from what other authors do. I commercial women's fiction is a very crowded market. um And I didn't, I hadn't carved out enough of a sort of niche for Haley and what I'm saying and what I was doing. But I think I have now. And I think that's what's helped me get attention.

And what do think it is about this book that has meant it's been the one that's allowed you to get an agent and a publishing deal?

Well, I think em comics is so visual, so it works great on Instagram. So that's, can post about my book without being like, buy my book in every post, because I've got something to share and communicate and it builds those relationships online. em I think my way of seeing the world's people seem to really like, which is like, I think I'm a very honest person. I'll talk about the sort of really dark stuff. I'll talk about the funny and silly stuff and I'll talk about uh really personal stuff as well. I'll talk about... em you know, my mental health and all of that I go into in the book. And finding the sort of humour without being too sort of superficial, like it's easy to make a funny joke, but then what's, as I was saying earlier, cancer is not all horrendous grimness. No one wants to read a book that's all horrendous grimness, but a book that's just cancer jokes isn't honest either because you're not tackling the difficult stuff. I think, I think where it works is because I am finding that balance. And also I'm telling a story about human connection. think the ultimate message of my book is that human connection helped me to heal and like giving the surgeon that card, expressing my identity, showing people that I'm a person, recognising that they're people. I think in the bustle of the NHS and the pressure and the targets and all that, it can be forgotten. And I just want to remind people of that.

Absolutely. all about. It's all about having that connection. think, hopefully what you'll do with this book as well is I hope that lots of healthcare professionals will pick up the book and will read it and will see that perspective in a really accessible way. They will see that perspective of the patient and hopefully, you know, there'll be one or two surgeons or oncologists who will look at it and be like, Oh, I didn't know patients feel like that. Hopefully that will be really helpful.

So I had my radiotherapy pages got published in the medical journal um and um I found radiotherapy a bureaucratic nightmare. Firstly, they kept changing my appointment times all the time, which was really stressful and upsetting. So they say, oh, your appointment is at 12 noon. I was like, okay, great. I'll be back for the school run. And then I get a text a day before saying your appointment is at three. It's like, okay, my husband needs to cancel his meetings so he can do the school run. And there was no... um recognition of the stress this caused for me. I felt like a tiny cog in a machine and I felt the stakes were so high that I didn't want to make a fuss because I wanted to go and have the treatment to stop me having cancer again. And it was really upsetting. And I got messages from doctors afterwards saying they um would really think about the story I told there. So that was really, really good to hear.

um Just going back to what you just said about, you've got to have the humour in there mixed in with the sad and the serious stuff. That is something that was also completely with me when I was writing my novel, Single-Bald Female, that you've got to put the humour in there because no one wants to read a book that from cover to cover is just sob, sob, sob, especially if you're going through that in real life. So yeah, some of the stuff that I tried to do were show like, the humorous reactions of friends when you tell people that you've been diagnosed. And so the character in my book is telling people and they're all reacting in different ways. So some of them are like, oh, you can get a boot job now. And others are like, oh, I know so and so whose fathers, sisters, daughters, cousins, dog had breast cancer and they died or whatever. you know, all these little things that people say, do you have a, what are some of the funny things in your book that we might find?

Okay, so actually going back to radiotherapy, uh they have a really stupid um system for getting, for the changing rooms. So you, um the changing rooms have sort of doors on both sides. You go in one side. and you change into a gown and then you go out the other side and go to the radiotherapy um and you're not meant to leave all your clothes, you've got to take everything with you. But the thing that made no sense to me was you go, people would leave but they wouldn't unlock the door, they just come through. So it's like, then it was my turn to find one and all the doors were locked. And it's like, that's just a really small thing that is inconsequential in the bigger picture. But it's just... It was quite a new cancer centre as well. It's like being designed by architects. Why did you not think of this thing as just have like a door unlock that unlocks both doors? Because this is, I'd always have to go and ask someone to go and unlock the door for me. So just little absurdities like that.

You said your daughter was three when you were diagnosed. What was parenting a toddler like whilst being going through breast cancer treatment and how has that relationship with your daughter? changed over the last few years?

Yeah, that was tough. So at the time I was diagnosed, I was working part time. She was at nursery three days a week. And then I looked after her two days a week, which is fine if you're not going through chemo, but I was just because I needed a lot of naps during the day. And she's a very sweet girl. She's as far as toddlers go, she was very low maintenance, but she's obviously still needed a lot of attention. But I needed naps throughout the day. And I didn't have the strength even to get to nursery to pick her up or drop her off most days. My husband picked up a lot of that slack. So he worked from home, he works full time and he would like watch her while he did a bit of work while I went and had my nap. So we sort of cobbled it together. It was not ideal. She watched a lot of CBBs, but we just had to get through it however we could. uh And she was too young to fully appreciate what I was going through, but she knew that cancer was a bad thing, of course, and she hated seeing me go off to the hospital so often. um That clearly upset her when I went to the hospital. And the nursery were really good. And they said that, cause we told them about everything and they tell us when she was upset and she needed more cuddles and everything. um But we tried to be as honest as we could with her because there's no point trying to hide it because she can see that something's not right. But we tried to do it, of course, in an age appropriate way. And we have a great relationship now. My treatment is hopefully behind me. I don't know how it's affected her in the long term.

How old is she now?

Six. She knows about my book. She's read some of it, not all of it, because I won't let her. but she's very proud of me being a published author now. And um it will be interesting when she's older to ask her how much of it she remembers. Yeah.

Did you always use the word cancer with her?

Yeah.

We did an episode on this podcast earlier this year with Caroline Leake from Fruit Fly Collective, which is an amazing organisation that helps parents with cancer to know how to talk to their children about what they're going through and to just kind of help families through treatment. So, and she does it in a totally age appropriate way. So if the child is three, she'll give you kind of techniques, even like cuddly toys for how to em talk to your child and how to communicate those things. em And then also gives tips on how to get through chemo whilst also managing a toddler. So you might have like a box of fun stuff that when you have no energy, you can say to your child, okay, let's get the box out and we can see what's in that box today and we'll have a play with those things. oh yeah, if anyone's listening who does have kids of any age and they're going through cancer treatment, then do have a look for that episode with Caroline Leak.

That sounds great. I wish I'd known about that at the time.

I know, right? Yeah. I had uh My youngest stepdaughter, I have three stepdaughters and my youngest stepdaughter was eight when I was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer. And I also wish I'd known about Fruit Fly Collective at the time, because it is an absolute minefield knowing how to communicate cancer to a child of any age. And I think sometimes even can be harder when the child is older, when they're older, old enough to understand or they're a teenager or whatever, because yeah, they probably know more about the scarier sides of it. But hopefully your book will also help you to keep that in, keep the fact that you've had cancer in your family life, but in more of a, I don't want to say fun way, in a more lighthearted way, she knows it's there, she knows you had it, she knows that you're recovered now. And hopefully that book. when she gets older will be a way for you to sort of talk through and process some of that stuff that happened with her maybe.

Yeah, I hope so.

There is a bit in the book where you, think your husband cooks dinner for you and you apologise and say, oh, sorry, thank you for cooking for me, sorry, sorry that I can do it. Was guilt a big thing that you experienced going through treatment?

Yeah, absolutely. I felt so guilty that I couldn't do everything I normally did for the household. My husband was, He was working full time. He was doing all the cooking and cleaning and childcare. And this was all in my head. He was, he's fantastic. He was happy to do it because I would have been happy to do it for him if the tables were turned and it's what people who love each other do for each other. And the cancer was not something I chose, of course, but I still felt guilt. I felt guilt for not, for seeing everything he was doing and not being able to help. I felt guilt for. not being able to be the parent, I wanted to be for my daughter. And these were feelings I had to process later. And I can see logically, of course, it was not my fault in any shape or form. But there's so many different feelings and traumas that cancer can cause. this was one of them. thinking about guilt, I also think about how I felt when I was diagnosed. started I started blaming myself. So did I drink too much wine? Did I eat too much cake? I went through that, I think, very natural phase of trying to blame myself because I think I was looking for a reason and actually there is no reason. It's just random bad luck probably. And I still enjoy wine and cake now. So that's the main thing.

Yeah. And of course it is never your fault. There are so many different factors that contribute to us getting breast cancer and it's never our fault. But I completely understand that guilt. I think, again, that's one of the things that you really show in the book is, you know, saying sorry to your husband for cooking you a meal. Like, it's so relatable. Like, it's just, I think everyone will get that because I don't know anyone really who enjoys being in the position where they have to depend on others To do things for them that they're used to doing for themselves. Especially.

feel so helpless.
Yeah, that's really hard. That lack of control over your life.

Yeah. When you're used to being an independent person and doing things for yourself, it's so frustrating to have to ask other people to do them for you. So yeah, that's another thing that you show really well in the book. You talked about mental health and how you really struggled with that and you've had therapy, which is brilliant. Can you tell us a little bit about your mental health? experience with breast cancer? Y

eah, sure. So I talked earlier about how I went through a bit of denial before my diagnosis, I got my diagnosis, and then I was sort of straight into the treatments. And actually, I was quite cheerful throughout it. I was just sort of getting through it. You know, not cheerful every day, of course, but like, seeing the funny side of things that happen, trying to enjoy life where I had the energy to still, I wasn't particularly even thinking about you know, would my treatment be successful or will the cancer come back? All that. was just head down, getting through it. And then after surgery, I started to feel all the toxic feelings that I'd sort of pushed away. I sort of pushed them all down.

Was the surgery after the chemo and radiotherapy or was that at the beginning?

It was chemo, then surgery, then radiotherapy. So I'd been through the worst bit. mean, I would say, after I got through chemo, doctors said you're through the worst. And they were sort of right, but there were many different flavours of worst that I experienced.

Yeah and it's through the worst physically, but not mentally.

Yeah. Yeah. So I had been in sort of coping mode and then I had a little break before radiotherapy started. And that's when all the feelings I pushed down sort of rose up. And I've drawn that in the book, like a tidal wave, like overshadowing me. um And that was a point where I realised, okay, I need some help with this. So I asked my medical team if there was therapy available and luckily there was, I was able to get that on the NHS. And I had a few sessions with a really good therapist who just helped me unpack all those feelings, of pick them apart one by one and look at and examine them and sort of accept them and then move past them. So I was processing trauma basically. And that was... something I really needed to do. And people ask me sometimes, what is the thing that helped you most in sort of the post-treatment period? And I would say it was getting psychological support. Like that was a medical need. think if treatment leaves you traumatised, em which unfortunately cancer treatment does, em without that mental health support, you are not healed. need... you know, if the treatment leaves you feeling awful, even if your cancer's gone, you are not healed. That needs to be part of everyone's treatment, I would say.

Yeah, absolutely. I love the idea of the image of the tidal wave as well. That's so clever. And I'm in awe of how your brain works in a visual way like that, because I'm more of a words, my mind, I think in words, but to think of that as a tidal wave, I'm starting to now think of it as a, hopefully you'll get like a cartoon film. adaptation of your book. Cause I can see it like a, you know, like one of those short, like the, is it the boy, the mole, the horse, the Fox, the Fox, the horse, the boy, the boy, the mole, the Fox and the horse. Yeah. the book by Charlie Mackasy.

I've not read it, but I've, I've all read it.

Oh, it's amazing. You must as a cartoonist, absolutely must. Everyone who listens to this podcast must also look at that book, read that book because it is the most beautiful thing that makes you think about emotions, but also through these beautiful visuals of animals, but that was also made into a short m TV show. And I could see your book um doing that as well. really powerful, emotional way.

So moving forward, how did you get to the point where you found an agent? What was your process with taking the book from just your own drawings and writings to getting it published?

So I joined Instagram, having never been on it before, in April 2023, so about two years ago. I tried to look at it as a tool. It's like, I looked at it and I saw all the people in the cancer community on it and I read some advice on how to use it. And I thought, oh, maybe if I do this right, I can build my profile, share cartoons. I could see that there wasn't anyone doing quite the same thing I was doing. There was a gap. So I gave that a go and it worked. I built an audience and My audience is mainly women who have been through breast cancer or going through it, but not exclusively people with other kinds of cancers, people who care for loved ones, doctors and nurses. um And it turned out that through all that, I got approached by the culture editor at the I paper. And she asked me, because she'd been alerted to my work because her mum had been going through breast cancer. And she asked if I'd like to do a um a piece about my cartoons in the I-Paper. So I said yes, which was awesome. And I'd already been approaching agents at that point, um hadn't got anywhere. um But when my piece came out in the I-Paper, I followed up with all the agents that it was still out with and said, look, I'm in the I-Paper. And I got two offers from agents. So that was awesome. And Julia, my agent, when she called me, she said, hey, I know exactly who I can sell your book to. And she was right. She did sell it to them. That was great.

And it's out here in the UK, but it's also coming out in America.

Yeah.

How do you feel about that?

Yeah, that's more than I ever expected or dreamed of. um It's amazing. Yeah, really excited.

Why the name This Might Surprise You?

Because it is surprising. um I was very keen when I was thinking of the title and that whole approach I'm taking, um lots of breast cancer content, it leads with the boobs. I did not want boobs or breasts or... that word in my title because everything's very feminine and pink and that's fine. There's an audience for that. You need to have a brand. I want to show that um this book is something different from all that. It's very relevant to people with breast cancer or any other cancer, but um it's a different message, not like anti-that, but just sort of complimentary. And I think... I was so ignorant about cancer before my diagnosis. I was told I had cancer, then I thought, oh, I'm going to die. When am I going to die? Thankfully, that's not what happened. um And I knew so little. I knew that you lose your hair and you feel a bit sick. That's what I knew. And obviously, there's so much more to it than that. So I was surprised both positively and negatively at many points during my whole experience. um So I wanted to have a punchy title and I was quite surprised that it doesn't seem to be taken by anyone else. So I was like, yeah, I'll have that.

It also kind of goes adjacent to this is going to hurt.

Yes, exactly.

Which is another really amazingly popular and brilliant book.

Yeah, I had that in my mind as well. Yeah.

How do you hope people will react to the book?

I hope that it will help people feel seen. um When I was diagnosed, people gave me guides to breast cancer and all that, but I just felt so overwhelmed by information. I didn't want to read anything like that. I wanted escapism. I read space operas and period dramas and all that. I wanted things that took me out of my situation. But I think if someone had given me my book, would have been like a friend to me. That's what I hope it will be for other people. It walks them through and I'm honest and said, look, this will be really hard. And of course, I was fortunate with my diagnosis. I had a curable kind of cancer, but hopefully, whatever people's diagnosis is, I'm saying, look, there's hope you're not alone. Here is a reflection of your experience. And I know that people have told me on Instagram that they've actually shown my cartoons to some of their loved ones to help them say what they find hard to say themselves. if people can use it in that way, that's fantastic. I also hope that doctors and nurses and maybe even policymakers will look at my book. um Obviously, the NHS is always a political topic of conversation. And I think um if people can read my story and see, remember it's all about people and that you need good processes in place to, you know, I think the political conversation is always, we need funding for like doctors and nurses and hospitals, the buildings and the frontline people, but you need all that back office support to function and that's been cut so much. And I think my book makes an argument for that's that um all the admin stuff is so important. because if you don't have that, feel like you're trapped in a bureaucratic hell and you can't get through on the phone to anyone, your appointments get shifted all the time and that adds to that dehumanisation. It's not a political book per se, but I think um it's a sort of reminder that we're all people and I think um when everyone's so atomised these days, know, with all the conversations about social media and everything, I think anything that grounds us in our humanity again can hopefully make a difference and I hope that's what I've achieved.

Yes, I'm definitely going to take a few copies into my hospital and give them out to a few staff members. It's one that you can dip in and out of as well, isn't it? It's quite nice. It'd a lovely one to have in hospital waiting rooms for people to just sort of dip.

You could maybe donate some to hospitals and be the hospital copy that people can look at whilst they're... Can you imagine that in the chemo room?

Yeah, that would be great.

looking through it would be so nice.

And you mentioned friends there. mentioned your book being like a friend to people, which hopefully it will be, but you joined Instagram and kind of became part of that breast cancer community. What have you gained from meeting other people in the cancer community?

I've been really moved by it actually. think cancer is so scary and I was very fortunate with my diagnosis. But if I ever think about what if my cancer came back? What if I had secondary breast cancer, incurable breast cancer. I now know there's a community of people as I'm sure you've benefited from too. And it's like, you're not alone. if I needed, if I, I'm very fortunate right now, I feel I'm in a situation, I don't need emotional support in that way. I'm able to hopefully give it to other people through my cartoons. But if I ever needed it, I know where to go now, yeah.

And if people are listening and they're not on Instagram and they don't want to, join social media, understandably, then Breast Cancer Now also has resources which we'll put in the link in the show notes where you can find someone like you who is going through it, who's going through a similar thing. So you can find a sort of support and someone to talk to.

How has the cancer experience changed you?

It's made me weirder. I think I've always been quite weird. like I, but I say it's made me weird. I think It's just brought out more of who I am. I've, I want to go and do my em strange creative projects em more and more. And I want to just say how I feel about things and em within reason and not worry about people liking me or not liking me. m Yeah, I just feel more able to be myself because I, em just less worried about what people think about me, to be honest. Yeah.

That's great. It's made you a bit more you.

Yeah. Yeah. And I wouldn't have chosen it, but I think it's thanks to cancer and I'll have a publishing contract. And was it worth it? No, but it's a fantastic place to be. And hopefully em the start of a whole new creative career for me.

Well, yeah. So what kind of books would you like to write in the future?

I want to do more comics. I want to do another graphic memoir on a completely different subject. So this is a complete, uh completely off the wall, completely different. I'm really interested in Picts. So they were an ancient race that lived in Scotland between the fourth to the twelfth centuries. uh So I studied them at uni and no one knows much about them except they left stone symbols on stones all over Scotland and no one knows what the symbols mean. and I want to do a graphic novel about me going to Scotland to try and find out what the stones mean. And I probably won't, but I bet it some interesting adventures. Cool.

Do you have Scottish heritage?

Probably. I I look it, don't I? em I think my mum has done the genealogy. I think she's found some Scottish way, but not in my, not among my living relatives, no.

Wow. That sounds very different from this project and also very cool and interesting.

Yeah, I'm sure it'll be fascinating. But also, yeah, I... I'm very happy to have done this cancer book, but I was very clear with my agent. I have one cancer book in me. I don't want to be doing cancer books my whole life. Like it's great to do it. And then I want to do other things.

Yeah. Same.

Yeah.

I'd like to finish with the question we're asking everyone on this podcast. Breast Cancer Now's vision is that by 2050, everyone diagnosed with breast cancer will not only live, but live well. What does it mean to you to live well?

Not rushing through life, enjoying the moment, connecting with family and friends and finding ways to be creative.

Love that, yeah. Everyone can learn something from that, I think. Taking your time to enjoy things and enjoy life.

Where can people buy your book and find out more about you?

All Good Bookshops, online and in store. And you can find me on my Instagram, which is my name, Hayley Gullen, H-A-Y-L-E-Y-G-U-L-L-E-N.

And we'll put the link in the show notes as well. Hayley, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Thank you so much.

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