27th July

Pete's Points

I have always wondered why it is the social work staff in hospitals seem to stay in their offices unless they get a referral. I suppose there is a form of etiquette that is engendered by the rules of the hospital and the internal competition among the various groups of workers.

It was no longer an academic question this morning.

There I was in the waiting room managing to make light banter with a number of the other patients and their carers, occasionally trying to inject a moment of light humour into their lives and basking of course in the wry smile, occasional guffaw of laughter, smirk or groan, that accompanied my efforts.

I found that one delightful patient and carer were unaware of the joys of having a Nurse Coordinator available within the hospital. Having left her pamphlet at home I had to resort to getting this practitioner's details from the nursing station.

Suffice it to say that she will in all likelihood receive a number of calls from the patients who sat in the waiting room and found out a little more about her services. Since I only completed a questionnaire this morning which is seeking to evaluate the service, it was delightful to be able to contribute to its use by others.

Some of the other patients were unaware of the Community Transport Service that may be available to eligible patients through the HACC scheme. So this information was then provided.

Another patient wanted to know what I had done to prevent those dreadful mouth ulcers that they had heard about. I was able to pass on to them the information about the Biotene products they could obtain from the nursing staff and make the additional suggestion (based on personal experience) that tongue brushing was an essential part of care for the mouth I had found useful, trying to avoid Mucositis.

By the time I was called for my appointed moment of destiny with the great linear accelerator I had already provided information and suggestions to at least five people.

I was quite pleased that my experiences to date with the various treatments was able to be useful to a number of others.

When you are in the middle of treatment, it is nice to be able to offer some of the lessons learnt to others, to help them to avoid the need to learn those same lessons in the school of hard knocks.

As usual the process went without a hitch and I found to my amazement that I only have 11 more treatments to go.

Tomorrow will be a nice day - blood tests together with the treatment and then the weekend - off for two days for good behaviour I guess.

Then the countdown really begins.

I am of course dreading the last three treatment days and the number of days that are in the middle and following this. The combination of both the chemo therapy AND the radio therapy knock me about dreadfully. Still, I guess it will be only a week or so and then, hopefully just a dim distant memory.

I threatened the staff today with the notion that I would bring my camera with me tomorrow so that they could pose for pictures that would be featured on this BLOG.

I had several interesting reactions - one of which of course was the one expected one, namely, "no thanks". Another which prompted me to ask for permission before I even tried to photograph the linear accelerator (though why I would want a photo of a machine did escape me at the time.)

Another one of the staff, who shall definitely remain anonymous, was happy to pose, but feared that publication of his picture on a BLOG might result in too many phone calls from interested persons who might want to meet and go out with him. I found that reaction most interesting.

Anyway we will see whether anyone wants to pose or not - they DO of course have the right not to.

That's all for today folks - more tomorrow.