Give Hospital Car Parking Charges the Boot

Many cancer patients face lots of unforeseen expenses as a result of their diagnosis.

 

In 2010 the government recommended that regular visitors to hospital should receive free or, at the very least, concessionary parking.

 

Despite this, cancer patients face a lottery with some hospitals providing free parking whilst others charge up to £3 an hour.

 

Macmillan are currently campaigning to make car parking charges free for cancer patients. Over 18,000 people have already backed their campaign to stop this unfair tax on illness.

 

Can I ask you all to take 2 minutes just to sign the petition by clicking here

Fundraising

There are a few people I wanted to big up for fundraising already done, and others who have sponsored events coming up that I wanted to highlight:

First of all, my work (PLB) have chosen Macmillan as their charity for 2012/2013. They have done a fab job so far with various events and received this nice letter from Macmillan back in November.

PLB staff have raised lots more since then, such as a group of runners (Willem, Clare, Cathy, Rob, Laura, Mike, Suzanne, James and Guy H) taking part in the November Brighton 10k. Everyone finished and the team raised a fantastic £675 for Macmillan. An amazing achievement and thanks to all who sponsored the team :)

Also fun events like "Get Your Baps Out" - cooking sausage and bacon sandwiches on the BBQ at the start of a freezing December!

 

PLB not only fundraise for Macmillan, in November some of the guys in the office were sporting fab "mos" for Movember and  raised a fantastic £1150 to increase awareness of Testicular and Prostate Cancer. If you click here, you will see the we have even got some Mosista's involved on the last day :)

Two of my friends Robin & Michelle are both being Dryathletes for January. The Dryathlon raises money for Cancer Research. Basically neither if them can drink for the whole of January! Please dig deep and sponsor them if you can :)

In February, my friend Caroline is running the Brighton 1/2 marathon in support of The Olive Tree who have been a wonderful lifeline to me. You can sponsor Caroline by going here

Another friend Bob is running the Great South Run in October in aid of Macmillan, you can sponsor him here

Thanks to all the lovely fundraisers and to all of you who sponsor them!

Bragging Rights

Just had an email from Macmillan telling me that my Community Guest Blog on their website was the most viewed guest post of the last quarter of 2012 :)

 

 

Getting Published

A few weeks ago I was really pleased to be contacted by Macmillan, who on having read this blog, asked me write a one-off guest post for their Community News Blog.

It was published today on Macmillan's website and on their Facebook page :) It has already been seen, shared and liked by many, many people. Hopefully it will help other people going through what I did to feel more prepared and not so alone. (Feeling dead chuffed!)

Poking & Proding

Rob drove me to East Surrey Hospital with us both feeling like this was still a dream. We went into the Outpatients Area which was the most dreary, dull and depressing waiting room I had ever been in. We got called in 20 minutes late and saw Dr Stacey-Clear (who we had seen privately at Spire before Florida) who said that the mammogram had shown up something "suspicious" that they wanted to look closer at.

He said that I would immeadiately be having an MRI, an ultrasound and a biopsy. It was then that I started to actually get more concerned, why would I be needing all these tests if it was just nothing.....

There was also a Macmillan nurse called Carol in the room which also concerned me, why would she be there if they weren't seriously concerned about this...?! Carol took Rob and I to a separate room and explained a little to us about why we were doing the things we were.

They led me to the MRI room where I had to have an injection to open up my vein in order for them to put red dye into me so that the MRI images were more clear. I was then asked to lie face down, given headphones (no music - just to block the noise) and the dye was flushed through my arm. The MRI was noisy, claustrophobic and seemed never ending.

Afterwards I was led to the waiting room for the ultrasound and biopsy and I broke down in tears in Rob's arms as I realised what this could all mean.....

They called my name and I went into the ultrasound room. The lady scanned my boobs and armpit and commented that it didn't appear to have changed since before Florida which was a good thing. She then asked Rob to leave and I was injected twice (as there were two lumps) in my left boob with a local anaesthetic and she then took samples from each lump in a procedure called a core biopsy.

I was then wrapped up in bandages and told that Carol would call me with an appointment time to discuss the results on Friday.

Let the waiting begin...