A lump in the breast can usually be detected by a fully trained reflexologist.“We can notice the difference in the foot of areas where there is cancer,” said practitioner Hayley Bennett who has been working in the field for nine years.“It will either be tight and knotted or it can be crunchy. We call it ‘crystals' in reflexology and we break down that area. When you break it down it starts healing because it sends oxygen to that part of the body oxygen and energy.”Stressing that her practice is not curative but rather helps people to maintain good health, she said she has completed an intensive training programme on reflexology for cancer patients.“We can help quite a lot with cancer in all the different stages,” she said. “We can help with the stress they get on being diagnosed, to the stress they get when they are having treatments. We can help alleviate the nausea and other issues that they are having at that time.”Reflexology treatments can take place alongside any and all cancer treatments and do not cause an adverse affects, she said.“When they are actually having chemotherapy, the reflexology treatments are scaled back from an hour to about 20 minutes. This is because their immune system is weak and we are just trying to boost it instead of giving them too much to cope with,” she said. “It helps stable them and gives them relief which helps them sleep.“Working on pressure points in the foot releases stress in the body and we do lymph drainage which gets the system flowing and helps remove all the toxins that have been put in their bodies.”Reflexology provides a good way for working on a specific area of the body without having to directly touch it, she said.Particularly in the case of breast cancer, where the shoulder and breast areas are sore to the touch, she is able to help the area heal faster by massaging the top of the foot, the area that corresponds to the breast.She said she's seen people at various stages of the disease here.“I've done work with people right up to the end. I've been in Agape House and treated people the day before they've passed,” she said.Asked how her patients at Agape feel about her treatment she said: “I find it different for each of these patients. Some like that I am someone different, someone who is not family and not a nurse or someone medical. They talk about stuff that is not easy to talk about with their family.”As her training included counselling, Ms Bennett said she is equipped to handle the types of discussions that emerge.“Part of the treatment is counselling. You talk to your clients and get the whole picture of what is going on with them.“You learn a lot more that way. It's what we do if someone comes in with a pain in the shoulder.“We'd want to know why that is happening. Where is it coming from? It's the same with cancer.”And she said she just feels drawn to help cancer patients.“I had cancer patients before I went for the training,” she said. “I was seeing a lot more cancer generally and I wanted to know what more I could do for my clients. I wanted to be able to help,” she said.“I think when you have it, your whole life stops. Everything runs around the cancer and the treatment.”And she said she felt that being a reflexologist also affords her clients a break from medical practitioners and the stress related to being treated as a patient.She said she typically sees her cancer clients once a week for about 20 to 30 minutes.“If they are going through quite a lot once a week is probably good because we find the longer the gap between visits, the more likely it is that the work I did has been undone,” she said.“With a lot of the cancer clients, it depends on when they can fit it in and what's going on with their treatment.”For more information on reflexology and cancer telephone Ms Bennett on 531-8304.