How do you deal with problems following cancer and its treatment?

[EmmaG]

If you have completed initial cancer treatment in the last 12 months (e.g. Surgery, Chemotherapy, Hormone and/or Radiotherapy) we’d like to invite you to take part in this online survey. Researchers from the University of Southampton want to find out the ways that people deal with cancer and treatment related problems once treatment is over. Establishing this will help them to identify people who are most likely to have difficulty dealing with problems so that these people can be supported appropriately. It is important that the results include the experiences of people who have had different types of cancer and different treatment and they would like to ensure that people who have had treatment for lung cancer are represented in this study. The survey is open now for a limited time. Please click the link here to find out more and to complete the survey: soton.ac.uk/msrg/onlinesurvey

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I had surgery in March 2011, which was un successful. I had an 11cm tumour which had spread into the pleural space and there were seedlings throughout the lung. I was tested for EGFR was was positive therefor my first line treatment was Gefitinib (Iressa). I started it 3 weeks later.

It took me a good 4-5 months to recover from the surgery and initially needed mobility aides at home as I couldn't get in and out of the bath and needed to sleep upright. These were provided mostly by the hospital and the bath lift by the community loan store.

The chemo I am on has minimal side effects and therefor I have a good quality of life. I am now 6 months down the line and side effects are almost non existant. I still have some intermittant residual pain (from the surgery) and only need to take occassional paracetamol.

One of the biggest problems initially was the lack of money. I was only 49 and still working full time, I was self employed. We lost an income that we depended on and the only sick pay I got was SSP. I had previosly served in the RAF so we applied the SSAFA for help, they gave us £3,000 towards our mortgage (£2,000) and £1,000 for daily living expences. As I was a nurse I applied to some nursing charities which awarded me another £2,000 we would not have managed without this help and would have got into debt with out mortgage and utility bill. My husband was also self employed and he needed to look after me. It took 4 months to get my pension and life insurance. Macmillan were great and sorted all the other benefits out which were paid within weeks.