Began my chemotherapy at Cookridge on Wednesday. It was a very long day indeed leaving the house at 8.30 and not getting home until 7.30. Not just the traffic, I had to spend virtually the whole day on drips in what will be the longest session I have there because I was given two of the drugs and a flush between them. I take the third in tablet form. I am not on the permanent line they were talking about in Halifax. Rather pleased about that.
None of it was an ordeal other than the drive and one of the side effects of the drug oxaliplatin which I had been well advised about and which started literally the minute I left the hospital. It’s called peripheral neuropathy. The nerves react to cold by tingling and electric type shocks. From now on I must be like a Victorian lady and never go out without gloves which I must also use whenever I remove something from the fridge. For example it doesn’t feel cold to me in my bedroom at the moment but as I am typing this I feel it starting up prompted by the colder air I presume.
But in spite of all this I was really taken by the the way I was treated on the ward. The atmosphere was completely different from Halifax. If there were any copies of “Hello” magazine around I didn’t see them. D, the nurse who was responsible for my care was an American from New Jersey. She’s in her early 30’s I would guess, very intelligent and wanting to train as a clinical psychologist. We had all sorts of interesting discussions throughout the day & she was a star at getting the cannula in my dreadful fragile, slippy veins.
The other patients were also very easy to spend time with. Experiences in Halifax have made me forget just how intelligent working class women can be. One even linked the growth in cancer to Chernobyl. In Halifax none of the other patients would have heard of it. The woman in the next bed had colorectal cancer too which had returned after 4 years to two other places and so is like mine inoperable. Even though she was diagnosed earlier than me it’s still come back.
Everyone was so friendly. They were all interested in why I was coming so far & when I said I found Halifax depressing two of them said that people there said it had always had a reputation for being “clannish” and unfriendly. There was quite a sense of camaraderie & I felt yet again how much more at home I feel in a cosmopolitan place like Leeds. I have of course noticed this before, how genuinely friendly Leeds and Bradford people are, especially by comparison to Halifax.
Chris didn’t stay with me the whole time but popped in and out throughout the day. He is also very impressed by the different atmosphere and commented that the nurses seemed far more relaxed and approachable there. But he says he would welcome any suggestions for finding the best route, ie with the least traffic. We’ve already tried several routes but around Leeds especially the traffic doesn’t seem to move.
bugger, elaine, i haven’t been able to check in here for such a long time and it looks like you haven’t for a while, either. glad you’ve found a more constructive outfit… will check in again to find out the latest… fond regards…
Good luck for tomorrow: Elaine. Thinking of you: you need all the help you can get right now. x
In persuance of furthering work-life balance strategic visioning objectives as per collaborative participated bottom-up emergent mission statement thingy, we have have been authorised via off-line one-to-one face-to-face top-down command-and-control decision-making structures to communicate via on-line one-to-many asynchronous collaborative Web 2.0 software stuff that The Management, the non-TLA non-acronym short-hand euphamism for Tess, Brian, Fay, Colm, Geoff and Richard, are engaging in fruitful, going forward, verbal messaging non-signature-based interactive interactions pointing future-wise in the vague direction of [insert employee’s partner/husband/wife/co-habitee/living-together-in absolute-sinfulness/delete all non-appropriate then put the sodding name in] in putting our hearts together in spritual-non-scientific-faithful-wishing-type thingy you [the-aforementioned-in-very-long-brackets] ALL THE BEST, ELAINE – WE LOVE YOU [Oh no, how did that slip in – TYPIST – come over here this instant].
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Last week, we managed to knock it down to 27 miles and an hour and ten minutes each way. From Hebden Bridge, we took the A58 past Halifax until the left fork to Bradford. At Odsall Top, we took the ring road and followed signs to Leeds, through Pudsey and Horsforth and on to the A6120 until we turned left on to the Otley Road from Leeds. Our friend Mike B is very kindly organising a rota so I don’t have to take a day off work every week, and Elaine gets a change in conversation!
It’s still true lily… tho’ that’s not saying much for either of them!
I would agree with Sandi, except the last bit of the ‘wiggle’ -I assume you come out at Station Road?- it’s a hellish right hand turn onto Huddersfield Road (I’ll let you in if I spot you, btw!) so take the right hand turn in Norwood Green so you get onto the A58 just a little earlier -junction on a bend but at least it’s a LH turn into that road.
Whatever you do, avoid a scenic route through Brighouse a.t.m. (single lane traffic on the section up to Bailiff Bridge).
Weird – when my husband worked in Halifax, he used Hipperholme as the faster alternative to the M62!
Hi Elaine,
I don’t know which way you travel to Leeds but I got quite skilled when I was at Wyke at finding routes that avoided going through Hipperholme which was an absolute nightmare .In brief the route I used involved going through Halifax then turning up towards Northowram, after Shibden Hall, then right at the first roundabout you come to which led down to a small road on the left just after the gardening centre and then I wiggled my way through to the Huddersfield Road. I turned left there for Wyke but if you turned right it takes you down to the traffic lights onto the A58. Turning left there you can stay on the A58 all the way to Leeds. Coming back home was via Denholme and Oxenhope which is a lovely drive over the moors down to Pecket Well. Anyway if you want to go this way let me know and I’ll give you the route in more detail. (I would have travelled via Denholme in the morning but it’s a nasty right turn and the traffic can build up as well) Glad your experience at Leeds went as well as it did.Sandx
Just read through the blogs from July to now. I have experienced much of the problems that you have had over the last few years since my mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer and developed other problems around it. We had constant problems with lack of communication between departments, doctors and hospitals. We encountered numerous problems with hospital staff who just didn’t have time to consider my mother’s or the family’s feelings. After reading your blog I’m seeing that this wasn’t just a problem for us and must be quite widespread, making an awful situation even worse for thousands of people.
In the end, when we were told my mother’s cancer had spread to her spine and that there was no further treatment, the Macmillan Nurses became involved. Although my mother died soon after this diagnosis, the Macmillan Nurses were amazing in dealing with all of the agencies by now involved and making sure our questions were answered and needs met. I had no idea they were so clued up about so expert about the illness, and often knew more than hospital staff and our own GP. They acted as our spokesperson and liaised with every specialist and agency so we were no longer put off and confused. I would suggest that you contact them, if you haven’t already.
I sincerely wish you the best of luck with your chemo. I also beleive that hope plays a huge part in recovery/treatment, so stay positive and remember the testimonials of all the thousands of people who have been told there was no hope and are still around to tell the tale (you must have, like me, seen thousands of these on the www). Good luck and I will be thinking of you.
Elaine, I was glad to hear that the session in Leeds went well. It’s too bad that you have to drive so far and in such traffic. We’ve lived in Boston, New York, and California, where the traffic can be ferocious, but the traffic in England on our last visit was the worst I’ve seen in my life. The worst of the worst was the notorious M-25 west of London: 4 jammed lanes of cars each way, not moving an inch for many minutes at a time.