Page 246 - She's One Crazy Lady!

telling me to sit tight. I was sitting tight, sitting under the very dark cloud. Family and friends were so supportive, as were fellow Headteachers in the area who welcomed me into their schools to talk with me and help me. I was still attending Cancer Management and Patient Council meetings at KGH and also went along to the hospital’s Cancer Support Group with Sue and palled up with, Lesley, who later became on board. To begin with I found these meetings to be extremely useful and interesting because of all the different cancer stories we heard but, as the sessions progressed, I felt there was no quality time for the attendees, mostly patients, to have 1:1 time with one another to talk or sit and discuss issues, or just to chat socially and get things off their chest – sorry for the pun! Just my thinking, appreciating that for many this kind of support was just what they needed. After a while I didn’t go back. Neither did Sue, for early in December having told me on several occasions she didn’t feel right and having had difficulty to get doctors to see her and take her concerns seriously, the cancer had returned – secondary cancer of the liver, which was terminal. What an absolute bombshell. She and her family were devastated, as was I and all her friends and colleagues, for Sue had returned to work, never having had much time off whilst on treatment. Our chats, our phone calls and our get-togethers were more important than ever. I had to be there for her
for none of us knew what lay ahead.
Another reason I chose not to go to the support group anymore
was because I was asked by Flavia (PALS) if I would be interested in representing the hospital on a two-day Cancer Voices Conference at Birmingham – an event sponsored by Macmillan. I was intrigued. Cancer Voices? What was this about? Yes I would love to.
It was a brilliant two days. Three hundred delegates comprising of patients, carers, nurses, people from cancer services – all with one thing in common... CANCER. Two days of talking about cancer. Not for everyone, I am sure, but somehow I knew this would be an eye-opener and afterwards realised that we needed something like this in North- amptonshire that gave patients the same opportunity to talk and ask questions of the cancer services. It was a very significant conference.
(*) At this conference I met an artist called Michele Petrone and will talk more about this in the next chapter.
On returning from the course I attended another meeting with the LEA, accompanied by my Union Rep. In between time I had had another appointment with Dr Lawrence and Dr W from Occupational Health. I brought Dr Lawrence up to date with what had happened since September and he reassured me saying I was going about things the right way by sitting tight. To assist Dr W I had prepared some notes and a timeline of who said what and when. I didn’t feel nervous this time. Like Dr Lawrence, Dr W was adamant I had done the right thing too. He was very interested in the forthcoming reconstruction and asked me lots of questions about my mental and physical health, saying the Crazy Hats work I was doing was good therapy for me. His advice was
“Three hundred delegates comprising
of patients, carers, nurses, people from cancer services – all with
one thing in common... CANCER. Two days of talking about cancer.
”
246