The patients your local mobile cancer care unit helps

“Cancer touches everyone and everything in your life, the ripple effect is tremendous”

Sheenagh was born in Yorkshire, now living in a tiny village of Long Preston. Sheenagh knows only too well the joys and challenges of rural life.

In March 2017, Sheenagh was diagnosed with stage 4B Ovarian Cancer. After life-saving surgery, Sheenagh started a regime of treatment. Initially, this was based at the haematology and oncology day unit (HODU) at Airedale General Hospital, a significant drive from her rural home.

Sheenagh told us, “HODU is about 20 miles away from home, it can take anywhere up to an hour to get there and park. Then there was often a bit of a wait before my chemotherapy started. My chemotherapy was quite intensive and could take up to 7 hours.”

“Chemotherapy is pretty traumatic, it’s hard on the body and it leaves you just wanting to get into bed. I relied on other people to drive me to appointments and home again. Often my mum would take me and one of my sons would bring me home. That meant time away from their own commitments, that ripple effect again!”

When Sheenagh was offered the opportunity to have her chemotherapy on board a Hope for Tomorrow mobile cancer care unit, she had mixed feelings. That nervousness soon gave way to relief, Sheenagh explains, “As soon as my chemotherapy moved to the unit, I was able to drive myself there and back. I visit the unit in Settle, where it parks in a supermarket carpark. It’s a five-minute drive from home and I don’t need to rely on lifts from anyone.”

“It really is a wonderful service. I can’t say how much it’s changed my world.”

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This article was published on Yorkshire-Business.com, the website for West & North Yorkshire Chamber members.

The patients your local mobile cancer care unit helps