I have been nursing for over 20 years, and I have learned firsthand that it is our patients who have the most to teach us about health promotion, health service design, empathetic care, and holistic models of care that can best meet the needs of our patients.
Today I am sharing the personal insights of one of my incredible book readers, Wendy, who has described her story to help raise awareness after her own bowel cancer diagnosis. Wendy teaches us a powerful lesson and a warning to complete the national bowel cancer screening test which may have saved her life after she was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer.
“I was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer in mid-2019. I had no symptoms. I just filled in my national bowel cancer screening test that is sent out to those over 50 years old.
So don’t throw it in the top drawer and forget about it, read the (very well written) instructions and send it off!
I had an operation to remove half my colon and embarked on 6 months of chemotherapy. I was lucky enough to meet Sally Kriel just after my diagnosis and before she had written her book, ‘A Woman’s Guide to Navigating the Invisible Cancer Load’.
Cancer is multi dimensional, multi faceted and each individual reacts in different ways to the treatments as well as the diagnosis.
Wendy
There is no one-stop shop for this, so it requires a great deal of searching for what suits at certain times. Sally’s book addresses most of the issues that any person with cancer will encounter. I don’t know of anything quite like it. The resources at the end of the book are also very helpful.
Personally, it took me at least a year after my chemo stopped to start to feel any level of normality. I wish I had kept more of a journal at the time, because I seem to have forgotten some of the details of the journey, and I gained some great friends who before my diagnosis were just acquaintances. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has a cancer diagnosis or is assisting someone you know who has cancer. With that audience it should be a best seller!”
Wendy, Queensland, Australia.
To purchase your own copy of A Woman’s Guide to Navigating the Invisible Cancer Load head to https://theawakenedmumma.org/shop/
