What a year this has been in so many ways! A war in Europe and a cost of living crisis coming after 2 years dominated by the Covid pandemic. Closer to home, NALC has finally run out of funds to sustain paid staff and a London office. The good news is that with its new structure using only volunteers all of its services will continue for the laryngectomee community.
HNChelp has met every month this year, excepting our usual August break, and we finished with a Christmas celebration. Members enjoyed great food, a raffle where everyone got a prize and a Secret Santa. Donations and the raffle more than covered the costs of the event.
We took time to remember a former member, Sandra Curran, who was caregiver to her husband Peter, a laryngectomee. Sandra gave tremendous support, especially to new members joining our group. Sadly she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2019 and passed away in 2020. Peter has written her story and it is available on the Pancreatic Cancer UK website
Pancreatic cancer is such a difficult cancer to diagnose and Sandra’s story highlights some of the problems that patients encounter in their journey and lessons that need to be learned.