When I was having radiotherapy in 2007 - good grief, so long ago already! - I had to go to the hospital on a daily basis for 4.5 weeks (22 working days). Weekends were a blessed relief as I didn't have to drive myself over to the hospital, find a parking space (outside the hospital grounds in the surrounding streets, since nobody bothered to tell me that cancer patients are supposed to be given free parking in the hospital grounds - something I only learned about last month!), walk up to 2km to the hospital, have the treatment, walk back to my car and drive myself home.
As you can see, one vital piece of information - free parking for cancer patients - was never transmitted to me. There is, however, more information that I have learned today and that would have made my life much easier - the daily drive became increasingly diffcult as time went on; even though I suffered minimal side-effects, by the end of Week 3, I was beginning to feel very tired. It seems that there is a volunteer service run via a local hospice whereby people who have to go for regular treatment can be taken to and from the hospital. Admittedly, it means fitting in with the volunteers' timescales, but it would have made a big difference to me. I had to organise my appointments to avoid rush hour, for instance, since I knew that I wouldn't feel up to coping with huge volumes of traffic after a treatment session. This limited the times I could go for my appointments and sometimes they were at most inconvenient times for me.
I wonder why the hospital didn't release those two pieces of information - parking and transport - as a matter of course? When you're undergoing cancer treatment, you have things on your mind other than asking about such issues, so surely it would be sensible if you were given this information with your first appointment letter? Admittedly, there is information about hospital transport, but if other transport is available, why not tell patients about it?
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