Healthcare professionals need to be sensitive to the individual experiences of women awaiting breast cancer surgery to give support to ease their situation. Setting the date for surgery will alleviate anxiety. Follow-up studies about the potential impact of presurgery experiences on later experiences of living with breast cancer and intervention studies are needed.

Avoiding being overwhelmed by emotional reactions was a major goal for the women. Their coping strategies displayed similar patterns but diverged on some points. In general they needed to manage the situation in their own way. By being aware of women's individual needs and different coping strategies, nurses and other healthcare professionals can improve support to women in this vulnerable situation.

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Better coping was linked primarily to education, and secondly to attachment. Unemployment, low level of education and single/divorced/widowed status were related to greater use of cognitive defence. Women who used a defensive hostile style tended to receive poor social support. Nurses need to be aware of the influence of demographic characteristics on social support, coping and defence and to identify poor copers, as these patients are most in need of professional support.

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Mutual sharing of experiences is an important part of social support. Continuity, availability, information and respect were essential aspects of experienced professional support.

Agency', the concept, its connections to ontology and its uses within archaeological theory, are discussed and criticized. In recent archaeological theory, the term 'agency' has been attributed to things, plants, animals and humans. In this paper it is argued that the term 'agency' is logically meaningless if applied to everything that moves or has effects on its surroundings, and that we need a new, more precise terminology that discriminates between 'agency', 'effect', 'actant' and 'effectant'. That people, of all cultures, perceive and experience things/objects as having agency is explained as being due to projections of human characteristics, human psycho-neurological functioning, and the fact that all individuals and cultures are deeply involved with and dependent on things/objects. Connected to this, questions regarding different ontologies, animism, ethics and sciences are discussed. The paper presents a critique of symmetrical archaeology and materiality studies. Broader paradigmatic perspectives, more theoretical and methodological inclusiveness, and more interand trans-disciplinary endeavours are suggested to increase archaeology's 'agency'.