Good news yesterday my treatment with capecitabine is working shrinkage to liver mets,Yipee.Was on pablociclib and Letrozole this stopped working after a year,thought to myself if the first line treatment does not work well how is second line treatment going to work,but there you go,how wrong I was,no side affect atall.So decided to go away to Hydro and spa hotel in Ayrshire.,with my husband.
On a bit of a rant,but enjoying the start of my weekend away,I am in a hotel which is absolutely lovely they have a beautiful treatment room,which gives shoulder,neck and back massages,also facials and manicures.I had asked if I could possibly have a shoulder neck back massage but also informed them I have secondary breast cancer.I was told that they had No Onocoligy therapists.I left the treatment pretty peed off as I thought large hotels with call themselves hydro spas,would have someone trained,for this.I was thinking about the fact that they advertise spa weekends but obviously not for people suffering from cancer.
Might go and suggest to manager about training a therapist to do onocology therepy.
Hooray, so happy to hear of your good results on Cape! You certainly deserved that break. What a pity that they refused to do any massage on you though. I think its a bit on the ridiculous side, unless there is any medical evidence to suggest its harmful.
I received a course of free back and shoulder massages with my local hospice at primary diagnosis (after mastectomy and rads) and I remember thinking I’d been told I wouldn’t be able to have a massage. I discussed this with the therapist and she said as long as a therapist is aware a person has a cancer diagnosis and its 6 months post treatment (in terms of surgery and radiotherapy), there is no evidence to prove that massage is harmful or risky. In fact, she thought quite the opposite in that massage therapy is extremely beneficial because it gives us down time and makes us feel better!
I then spoke to a work colleague who also practised part time as a massage therapist and she said that she never would have accepted a client with cancer due to the “risks”. I asked her to name the risks and she couldn’t. I suspect its fear that holds some therapists back, as if a therapist in a hospice can give it (without any specialist Oncology training) then why can’t others? I would also hazard a guess that the beauty industry don’t like to touch people with cancer because its more a case of “well if something goes wrong afterwards we might get the blame” type mentality.
Anyway, that’s my rant to join in with yours, I say go ahead and ask the manager to get them trained if that’s what it takes to get them to offer services in future! xx
So happy for you about cape working for you. Im doing ok on palbo and letrozole. Shame re massage I think there used to be an issue about massage if you have a cancer diagnosis however I am sure its not a definite no go. I think as Gillyflower says it is an easy get out clause for therapists. I am going to try to find out. I think we deserve it after all we are going through. Hope you enjoyed your break . I am in Scotland too. Take care Liz. found this on this website.