Patient Stories
Jane finds our services invaluableWhy Tracey loves our Mobile Chemotherapy Unit
Ryedale businesswoman Tracey Sturdy used our mobile chemotherapy unit during treatment for breast cancer. Here, she explains how much it means to patients like her
Anyone can get cancer. Not everyone diagnosed will need chemotherapy or other cancer-busting drugs to treat them, but if you do it can be very hard to cope with.
Chemotherapy is normally given through a canula and drip into your body. People react differently to chemotherapy. Some have more side-effects than others and you really don’t know how it will affect you until you find yourself in that situation.
If you are unlucky to be having to go through this treatment, it can seem like a very daunting thing going to hospital. The whole procedure can be made even worse if you have a distance to travel to get there.
Speaking through experience, I can tell you that it’s no fun setting off an hour or so before your appointment, just in case you get stuck in traffic on your potentially long journey to the oncology department at hospital.
Coming home is not much better. It can be exhausting and stressful, to say the least.
Unfortunately the Mobile Chemotherapy Unit was not up and running when I received my chemotherapy for breast cancer, but I was lucky enough (if lucky is the right word?) to be able to receive many of my three weekly Herceptin injections there until my course finished in January 2018.
It was so much easier to get to Malton for my treatment from the village I live in. It’s great that you can park outside with ease and walk just a few steps to get into the unit. You don’t realise unless you have had bad side-effects to cope with, just how much this means.
The Mobile Chemotherapy Unit is especially good for the elderly or infirm and for those who struggle to get into hospital with no public transport from their village.
It’s great for those with young families or those who are working. It enables you to have a more normal life as less time will be spent travelling.
When I was having my chemotherapy at York Hospital, my husband and I met many people coming from remote areas who had struggled to get to hospital and were totally exhausted even before they started their treatment.
The unit is far more relaxing and you have less time to feel anxious or worried about what is going to happen. That is very important for cancer patients.
The staff at the unit are all very welcoming, friendly and professional, as they are in the hospital, I hasten to add.
They have time to listen to your worries. Questions you may want to ask you can actually remember because you’re not too exhausted by the simple act of arriving at your appointment, which could have sapped all your energy. You feel more able to cope with treatment.
That is why we are extremely lucky to have the unit up and running in our area, it’s a marvellous provision for those receiving treatment for cancer in the community, serving those patients in smaller towns and rural locations.
It really is a great asset that we must try to support and keep going. You never know, it just might unexpectedly be someone that you care for who in the future could benefit from this wonderful service.
Tracey Sturdy