KEY POINTS:
Lyn Mourant decided to be a nurse when her father died in a tractor accident while she was still in school.
"As a little girl, I'd played doctors and nurses, like everybody else. And I'd always had a leaning towards nursing. But I had a few other options."
She's been a nurse for more than 40 years now. For the past 7 years, Mrs Mourant has been with the Auckland Cancer Society. She is one of nine liaison nurses who work with newly diagnosed patients. The nine cover an area stretching from the Brynderwyns to Port Waikato, and look after some 500 patients.
It's a free service offered by the Auckland Cancer Society. Like all of its services, it is buoyed largely through public support.
Patients who need a liaison nurse can refer themselves or be referred by a friend or an oncologist.
Mrs Mourant works with patients on the North Shore and Rodney district, helping them manage the side-effects of their treatment, and guiding them through the complex workings of the health system.
Although her first love was paediatrics, she enjoys community nursing.
She decided to concentrate on cancer nursing after seeing how devastating a cancer diagnosis could be.
She has 74 patients on her books, a normal caseload for her area. Liaison nurses see their charges on a regular basis, and that relationship endures often throughout the duration of treatment, which could last up to six months.
"They need lots of support. Initially, they don't quite know where to go. They don't know how to negotiate the health system sometimes or understand exactly what the diagnosis means for them."
She also provides the chicken soup of cancer treatment - emotional support.
"Being cured is the ultimate thing you can hope for, but some people when we first meet them, we know, and they know as well, that they can't be cured.
"[But] they can have hope for a longer life, hope for the cancer to go into remission ... hope that they can be alive for the next Christmas, or for the birth of a grandchild, or for the wedding of their daughter.
"There's always hope."
She lives near the area she's in charge of, and often bumps into former patients.
"The best part is when I see somebody in the beginning when they are really very upset about their diagnosis, and through their treatment, they've come out smiling at the other end."
