Around 360,000 people are diagnosed with cancer every year in the UK, equating to about 980 people every day on average and it was on the day of the 24th January this year, that local resident and family friend Sarah Whiteman was diagnosed with myeloma – a terminal blood cancer.
Cancer’s presence in everyone’s lives in some form, certainly does not dampen the shock of being told that you yourself have cancer. We sat down last weekend, so I could get a first-hand perspective of the disease, talking about how cancer has changed her life and how the local area have supported her.
Sarah spoke to me openly about her cancer, seemingly adapted to what she claimed as her ‘different normal’. Telling her fourteen-year-old daughter, was undoubtedly the hardest element after her initial diagnosis, wanting to be simultaneously open, but battling her intuitive instinct of protection. Instantly, Sarah had to give up her job in a local primary school and abandon plans to move to Ireland, as she began an intensive course of VCD – a treatment including both steroids and chemotherapy. She battles insomnia, stomach cramps and irritability, to name a few, all due to her treatment, in which she takes up to thirty tablets a day and attends fortnightly trips to Kingston Hospital.
Upon asking about the support of Kingston Hospital she simply answered ‘amazing’. She sang the praises of the Haematology department, claiming the small unit of staff to be, ‘so hardworking, kind and organised’. She praised the consultant whose friendly manner makes you feel at ease, and even gestures such as being made a cup of tea once arriving makes the whole process that little bit less daunting.
Sarah reminded me that ‘this cancer is here for life - it is not going away’ and so I struggled to fathom how she kept motivated. She told me it was important for her to keep busy with friends and family, but also being open and talking about her cancer. Admirably, she said, ‘I would say I was always more of a pessimist, but I have become more positive since my diagnosis because I may have this cancer, but there are still people with the disease in a worse off position’, drawing positivity from her situation is not uncommon, although requires a huge strength of character. Sarah also informed me that she gains lots of support from the Facebook group organised by Myeloma UK, where she can chat to others with the same condition.
I was pleased to hear our local area - Kingston Hospital, the local community and the school that her daughter attends - have been hugely supportive. Kingston Hospital offers several workshops and services such as massages for cancer patients. Whilst cancer continues to loom in the backdrop of many lives, the progressing help of communities and the openness and strength of men and women such as Sarah, are a vital key in coping with this devastating disease.
Eleanor McDonnell Tolworth Girls' School
