As the year comes to an end, members enjoyed a Christmas lunch at our home base, The Olde House, with a final social evening taking place next week. Near the top of our thoughts were friends absent through illness or voluntary work commitments.  Every one present won a raffle prize and the choices of “Secret Santa” presents seemed to go down very well.

We can look back on 2016 as a year where we have continued to develop the support we provide. Recently we provided a boogie board to a patient about to have a laryngectomy, to assist with communication on the ward and back at home. Our member list now includes patients/carers beyond our traditional remit of head and neck cancer. This reflects the lack of specific support groups for many types of cancer.

Tonight, on BBC1’s The One Show, there was a film about a laryngectomee, Doreen, who has been left with no voice. She now uses Art to express herself. The program may be seen following the link below. The relevant section starts around 39 minutes in.

View

This will only be available for a few weeks so the video will be posted on our video page soon.

In the meantime we can see her attitude in the picture below:

It has to be said that the majority of laryngectomees  find a voice. For the minority, like Doreen, that do not  then tablets and mobile phones can offer an alternative way to communicate.