I was talking to someone the other day who was saying that going back to the Macmillan Cancer Centre for appointments is something she fears and finds upsetting. And I get it, there can be a certain sense of PTSD with these things, and constant reminders of the trauma isn’t necessarily what you want. But…
Tag: patient
What the experts say…
There’s a lot of terminology used when it comes to cancer and I think a lot of us are left to piece together the jargon with the help of Google in order to try and make sense of our condition…
MRI and all that
I suppose I should let you all know that I got a call saying there is nothing ominous in my MRI! Yay! To be honest, I had forgot about it, people kept asking me if I had heard and it took me a while to think what I was waiting to hear about. ‘you must…
Happy 70th birthday NHS
It is the 70th birthday of the NHS. Where to start? I suppose with something that’s obviously close to me. Looking at cancer alone – 50% of people get cancer. That means you, and your mum. Or your partner and your dad. Or your sister and your best friend. I know of people in the…
Little adventures
On day 13 of my hospital stay, Kat the Physio said I was allowed to go for a little adventure, so I actually got to leave the ward and we went up to Level 16 and looked out at the view. UCLH has a tall tower, and is situated pretty in the middle of London,…
Trachy tales
While a lot of the point of this post is really to say ‘Kat the Physio is amazing’, because I definitely haven’t given her enough time yet, I feel I also need to talk a little bit more about the Tracheostomy. The concept is great. Hole in the neck to breathe through, so no matter…
Last day in ICU
I had a very odd nurse that last day in ICU. She kept grabbing me by my painful cannula arm (like literally grabbing my cannulas) or grabbing me by my shoulder injury. At some point she managed to hit me in my swollen face and instead of just trying to apologise she tried to grab…
A few of the amazing nurses on my first trip to ICU
The first thing was to work out a way to communicate with people. How else would I make friends? The first notebook Dad got for me said on the front ‘Be your own kind of beautiful’. Seemed fitting, since I would definitely be challenging the normal ideas of ‘beautiful’ for some time (someone did just…
The Cancer Chronicles 