You get to know the patients as well as the nurses; it’s so busy in the hospital so the staff simply don’t have as much time to chat to you.
Cathy, 55, collapsed with chest pains at home in September 2021, and was rushed to hospital. Initially suspecting a heart attack, she was administered pain relief before an X-ray revealed a mass on her lungs.
“They were going to treat me for pneumonia, so I was discharged and went home to bed,” she explains. “Later that day, I was woken by a phone call. The hospital wanted me to go in the following day for a CT scan. I was then diagnosed with lung cancer, which a subsequent biopsy also confirmed.”
Beginning a course of immunotherapy and chemo in November that year at Norwich hospital, she then saw a poster in the reception area about healthcare in the community via a mobile cancer care unit. When her chemo finished that Christmas, she asked if she could continue the immunotherapy on the unit, based in Dereham.
“Although the unit is the same distance away from home as the hospital, around 15 minutes, it means I no longer have to travel on the notorious A27, which often takes so much longer due to congestion and accidents.”
Her husband, who currently isn’t well himself, has to often attend Norwich hospital for his own appointments, so the fact that Cathy has access to the local unit has been a huge relief, reducing stress, time and petrol money.
It is brilliant. It’s in a huge Tesco car park, so parking is no problem. And I’ll tell you about the driver of the unit, Jack. He’s fantastic. He makes me a coffee and I only go for the coffee!
Treatment itself lasts for around an hour or so, and what she’s grateful for is not having to hang around: “You’re never waiting – you’re dealt with straightaway. It doesn’t take up too much of your time because they’re never running late as they often are at the hospital, so you’re never sat in a waiting room watching the clock. On the unit, you know exactly what is going to happen and you just grab a coffee and a biscuit. You get to know the patients as well as the nurses; it’s so busy in the hospital so the staff simply don’t have as much time to chat to you.”
After sharing the merits of the unit with a colleague who also has cancer, she’s delighted that they too are now benefitting from its use while having immunotherapy treatment on there.
Cathy hopes to return soon to her full-time technical role at Linda McCartney Foods, but in the meantime, she is continuing treatment aboard a unit she sums up simply as “convenient and relaxing.”
You get to know the patients as well as the nurses; it’s so busy in the hospital so the staff simply don’t have as much time to chat to you.
Cathy, 55, collapsed with chest pains at home in September 2021, and was rushed to hospital. Initially suspecting a heart attack, she was administered pain relief before an X-ray revealed a mass on her lungs.
“They were going to treat me for pneumonia, so I was discharged and went home to bed,” she explains. “Later that day, I was woken by a phone call. The hospital wanted me to go in the following day for a CT scan. I was then diagnosed with lung cancer, which a subsequent biopsy also confirmed.”
Beginning a course of immunotherapy and chemo in November that year at Norwich hospital, she then saw a poster in the reception area about healthcare in the community via a mobile cancer care unit. When her chemo finished that Christmas, she asked if she could continue the immunotherapy on the unit, based in Dereham.
“Although the unit is the same distance away from home as the hospital, around 15 minutes, it means I no longer have to travel on the notorious A27, which often takes so much longer due to congestion and accidents.”
Her husband, who currently isn’t well himself, has to often attend Norwich hospital for his own appointments, so the fact that Cathy has access to the local unit has been a huge relief, reducing stress, time and petrol money.
It is brilliant. It’s in a huge Tesco car park, so parking is no problem. And I’ll tell you about the driver of the unit, Jack. He’s fantastic. He makes me a coffee and I only go for the coffee!
Treatment itself lasts for around an hour or so, and what she’s grateful for is not having to hang around: “You’re never waiting – you’re dealt with straightaway. It doesn’t take up too much of your time because they’re never running late as they often are at the hospital, so you’re never sat in a waiting room watching the clock. On the unit, you know exactly what is going to happen and you just grab a coffee and a biscuit. You get to know the patients as well as the nurses; it’s so busy in the hospital so the staff simply don’t have as much time to chat to you.”
After sharing the merits of the unit with a colleague who also has cancer, she’s delighted that they too are now benefitting from its use while having immunotherapy treatment on there.
Cathy hopes to return soon to her full-time technical role at Linda McCartney Foods, but in the meantime, she is continuing treatment aboard a unit she sums up simply as “convenient and relaxing.”
