Hi,
I keep looking on threads for people having treatment in my locality, but have found no-one yet.
It would be such a help to meet with anyone currently having treatment, or whose just finished.
I’m on my 2nd Tax at Northampton, then have a month of rads there.
Ann X
,
Hi Ann,
I had chemo at Kettering and rads at Northampton last year.
I hope you do as well as I did at Northampton. Horrible parking but good treatment.
Best wishes XXXXX
Margaret C.
Thanks, Margaret,
Glad you coped well with it. How are you now?
We don’t have a car, so will hope to manage by train and bus.I’ve been impressed with the Oncology unit at Northampton. I stayed on the ward for 4 days and can’t fault the treatment I received. They seem well organised and have plenty of staff.
maybe some of us can get together in Northampton one day for lunch?
Best wishes,
Ann XX
p.s. would you like my email address?
Hi Ann
I finished the last of my rads at Northampton on Friday. I have no complaints about my treatment at all, sometimes there is a wait [when a machine breaks down-which seems to happen often] but you are always told about this. I am fortunate in that I live in Northampton and only had a 10mins drive. The staff are all ladies, very kind and the service is quick and efficient.
In certain cases you can claim for travel expenses at the hospital.
It’s a long walk from the station to the hospital, much too far for me to manage at the moment, and I can’t think of a bus that goes direct. Do you know how you are going to get from the station to the hospital?
Wishing you well
Margaret
Hi Margaret No 2!
Thanks for replying. yes, it is a long walk. My husband and I walked back from the hospital to the train station a couple of weeks ago, when I went to have a wig alteration. So, I don’t know how I’ll feel about doing it now I have sore feet from the Taxotere.
I’ve enquired about refunds of travel expenses, so know what to do. But they don’t refund taxi fares.Actually, I’ve just remembered we noticed a new bus stop has been built not far from the entrance to the station, so we might get a bus part of the way there. It’ll be September before my rads start.
I’m 52 years old, and we have two daughters,aged 23 and 21, one at home and working,one at Uni in Birmingham. My hubbie decided to retire early once I had my diagnosis. We like popping up to Northampton on the train once a month to get some bargains! it’s rather expensive in MK shopping centre!
How are you doing now? Are you taking time to recuperate?
Best wishes,
Ann x
Hi there
I just got a diagnosis on 22 July and am having (worse luck) a mastectomy at Kettering next week. Feeling very scared, no clue how I’m going to cope, although I guess I’ll find the strength from somewhere. I live in Higham Ferrers, don’t drive, but really into meeting up with ladies sho belong to the same ‘club’ to offer support and friendship.
Cat
Hi Cat, I replied to your other thread and I live in Northampton. I wouldn’t mind meeting up before your op if it would be helpful.
Margaret
Hi Cat,
best wishes for your op. I will be thinking of you. If you have the same team as I did at Kettering you will get on well.
I`m only about 5 miles from you and I work in Rushden so drive through Higham on my way home.
There is a group that meets at Desborough and another at Peterborough. I dont know if there is one in Northampton but I would be interested in meeting up with both of you.
XXXXXXX Margaret
Hi Cat,
The mastectomy itself, I found, was much easier than I thought. Not much pain because the chest area becomes numb after they have removed lymph nodes. Feeling gradually comes back in the weeks following. What can be sore, though, is the shoulder and the drain, if it is in for a few days. But nothing that some painkillers can’t deal with.
The hard part for me was the emotional impact of losing a breast. It takes time to come to terms with it.( Still am ). I found I felt much better once I had my soft prosthesis to pop inside my tight-fitting camisole, in the hospital. Then I didn’t think it was obvious that I’d had a mastectomy.There should be a trained nurse you can chat to, if feeling low after the op. Please ask. Your breast care nurse will visit you with the prosthesis to take home.
I don’t know what they do post-op at Kettering, but at Milton Keynes they glue the wound together, so you have no dressing to worry about. It healed up beautifully.
Do the exercises they tell you to do, religiously. That’s important. It can be a struggle some days, but all of a sudden you will have a breakthrough with the stretching exercise. Don’t worry, like I did!
Hopefully, everything will go well. It’s simpler to have a mastectomy than to have a lumpectomy,I’ve heard. That can be more painful.
Looking back, the surgery was the easy bit, as I expected it might be!
The chemotherapy, if you need it, can be tiresome and tiring! But it can be done.Don’t worry about that, either. You’ll get lots of support from the women on here.
I DO recommend that you ring the breast care helpline now, rather than later. They are so helpful,kind, and sympathetic. It’s lovely to speak to someone who knows how you are feeling. The doctors and nurses don’t know, and are often too busy to listen, bless them. So, I heartily recommend that.
Hope you manage to meet up with the two Margarets in Northampton, that would be very helpful, I’m sure.
Hope what I’ve said helps you. Will be thinking of you. What date is your op?
Love,
Ann XX
P.S.
Take a goody bag of nice things to nibble in with you, and get someone to bring you food in if you don’t like the hospital food.And favourite soft drink. These things all help!
An mp3 player is handy to wear when having a nap, to cut down on the noise.